


Arbor Blessing

by FeralPrincess



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Angst, Angst and Humor, First Fanfiction Post, Humor, Modern Girl in Thedas, Multi, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, ratings may change over time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 43,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralPrincess/pseuds/FeralPrincess
Summary: “Arbor Blessing is a useful vine that is notoriously difficult to cultivate, as if it had a mind of its own.  The wind often carries its miniscule seeds for great distances from the parent plant. It is hard to say what causes the seeds to sprout when they land. However, it has long been believed that comfort and abundance follow where arbor blessing goes.” Ines Arancia, The Botanical Compendium.Eight years after the Exalted Council, the world of Thedas is imperilled. Fen Harel is nearing the completion of his plan but cannot bear sacrificing his friends.The Inquisitor ran off years ago, leaving broken members of the Inquisition behind.  Flora is from another world and another time.  Can she save Thedas, Solas' friends, and him or will he bring down the Veil and cause endless suffering?
Relationships: Dagna/Sera (Dragon Age), Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Mythal/Solas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

“Arbor Blessing is a useful vine that is notoriously difficult to cultivate, as if it had a mind of its own. The wind often carries its miniscule seeds for great distances from the parent plant. It is hard to say what causes the seeds to sprout when they land. However, it has long been believed that comfort and abundance follow where arbor blessing goes.” Ines Arancia, The Botanical Compendium. 

The world flashed blue; bright and electric. Everything around her, the mirrors, the laughing children, the frustrated parents, was swallowed in a lightening strike. Curiously, there was no thunder, no screams, and no running, just utter stillness; one moment caught and then gone. For a second, everything went black; there were howls, something reached out of the darkness to touch her face, to claw at her arms, to hold her fast. She wrenched away. A new colour: white. Vast milky space, eddying around her. She disturbed its stillness. A woman’s voice whispered, “so glad to have found you” and then swirled away in the mist. “It will hurt when he does it,” a young man’s voice, filled with such sadness, whispered in her ear and a hand clutched at hers, smooth and cool, he pressed their palms together. “Don’t be afraid; you are needed here,” the woman’s voice once more spiraling away from her. And then a deep voice filled the stillness, agonized and pleading, “make it stop,” he repeated.  
The question she now asked herself, after what felt like hours of hyperventilating and panicked pounding on the mirror, was how was she going to get home. Emotion drained away, leaving her only with sarcasm and that question. Flora was definitely not where she last thought herself to be. While reality is mostly perception, she didn’t think hers was this off. “A physics experiment gone wrong; the most logical explanation,” she thought. “Probably.”  
However, the explanation required two things: that she be a physicist and actively participating an experiment involving mirror portals. She was a botanist and there was no way she would know about any stage of portal physics research.  
“Wait, does that field exist? Probably not,” she said. “Besides, as far as I know the hall of mirrors in the carnival was not the site of an experimental particle accelerator which results in transportation across the multiverse.”  
She started out the evening, as she had begun no other, in a funhouse; the kind with mirrors which distort the body and play with perception of space. However, now, Flora found herself in a different kind of hall of mirrors. The kind with wild vines and other plants growing around ornate frames. The kind where mirrors sprung from rocks and within the looped roots of old growth trees. Flora folded her legs under her and sat cross legged on the ground. When she was little, every adult informed her the best strategy was to stay put when one was lost. Even though she was in her late thirties, it seemed like sound advice at the moment. “There is no point in wandering off before I understand where I am,” she said.  
She looked around. There was no breeze here. The air simply did not move. It was not stagnant but it was unnaturally still for the outdoors. The rocks and mirrors which floated above her were propelled by something else.  
A partial staircase with two short legs swinging off the edge floated just over her head. She ducked, not entirely sure how to judge the proper height of the moving objects above her. Flora heard an excited call as the stairs flew by: “Enchantment! Enchantment! Enchantment!”  
“Okay, so there are other people here who also speak English,” Flora said. She could at least bargain her way out of here if there was a common language.  
Behind her she heard the sound of someone landing; the thud of a heavy weight on dirt and the crunch of vegetation. Flora turned, attempting to get to her feet, and assess the threat all at the same time. However, time and grace were not on her side and all she managed to do was turn and kneel slightly as a short blond man ran towards her, “Enchantment! Enchantment! Enchantment!” he called. Even from this distance, Flora could tell he smiled. He maybe harmless to her. But maybe not. And well, she had nothing with which to defend herself so she put her hands out in front of her and closed her eyes tightly. She felt something gather around her and settle over her skin.  
“Not enchantment,” he said. Flora slowly opened one eye and looked around. The newcomer was smiling widely at her. “Not enchantment,” he whispered to her, pointing at the blue nimbus which surrounded her. Flora decided to open both eyes and see what was happening.  
The little person pointed to himself and said “Sandal.”  
“Your name is Sandal,” she said, she couldn’t help the incredulous tone edging her voice. She wondered if sandals were something different here. The little person nodded, vigorously. “Well, I am Flora,” she said, pushing herself off the ground and bending slightly to dust off her knees. Bits of dirt, stone, and what she hoped was regular grass clung to her skin just under the hem of her skirt.  
It seemed she had been found. Whether this would enable her to get home from here was another question entirely.  
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I live?” Flora asked.  
Sandal shook his head. He pointed to the mirror closest to them both. She had stumbled from it several hours ago. Flora shook her head slightly in response and Sandal shrugged his shoulders. Given it was the only mirror on their specific floating piece of rock, it seemed the appropriate response.  
“Well, how did you get here?” Flora asked.  
Sandal pointed to a mirror drifting away on a different piece of rock. There were books piled around it.  
“Then we are in the same boat,” Flora said, lifting her shoulder bag from the ground. “I guess we just wait until someone else finds us.” Flora crossed her arms in front of her, looked to the sky, and tapped her foot slightly. The impatient posture didn’t last long before she gave up and sat on the ground again. Sandal copied her.  
“What do you do when you are not trapped in the magic mirror twilight zone?”  
“Enchantment.”  
“Right,” Flora picked what she was going to assume was a normal blade of grass and twirled it between her thumb and fingers. “I have no idea what that means.”  
Sandal slipped a hand in a pocket in his belted tunic and pulled out a large flat stone with a carving on it. It glowed blue, the exact same shade as the nimbus which still surrounded Flora, which she was choosing to ignore until she could formulate some sort of science-based explanation. He showed the stone to her. It felt warm and safe. A bit like being wrapped in a space blanket in the coldest parts of the arctic. Flora looked at the carving on the stone. It was unfamiliar. “I don’t know why I expected to understand this,” Flora said.  
“He needs to know,” a voice called out above them. “Tell him the Eluvians are working. Sandal is missing.”  
“Sylaise spare me, I am not telling the Dread Wolf his pet child of the stone has run off,” another voice answered.  
“You ran away from a someone called the Dread Wolf? I don’t know if that means you have balls or you were touched by the fairies,” Flora said.  
“Not enchantment,” Sandal answered, with an unexpected degree of seriousness.  
“He will likely come looking for you, right? Which means I will be found,” Flora said, hope there might be someone who can tell her what is going on was quickly tempered by the fact said person was called the dread wolf. “Well, damn it all,” she said.  
“Well said, daughter of Eve,” a sonorous voice came from behind her. Flora looked quickly to Sandal and he didn’t look worried and so Flora tried to calm herself. Although, why she was taking the reactions of someone she just met in a messed-up wonderland as comforting she did not know.  
“Ah, Sandal, I see you have found a rather unusual friend. With magic,” the new comer said, prodding the blue light around her with something different. The barrier expanded if its own accord and prepared to take a heavier blow. “Old magic. Interesting,” he said.  
“Hello, I’m Flora. You know my new friend. Well, my only friend at the minute,” she gestured to Sandal.  
“Yes, he was doing a favour for me. A favour with rather unintended consequences,” he raised an eyebrow. It was then she noticed the pointed ears.  
“If you would kindly explain how those ‘unintended consequences’ ended up with my moving through a funhouse mirror to a David Bowie-esque music video I would greatly appreciate it.” she paused. “Wait, I can’t even explain what I was doing in a carnival fun house. No one goes to those anymore, let alone me, or anyone in my entire demographic, unless they have children. Even then, the impulse has been thoroughly destroyed by horror films. So maybe start at the reason why a woman in her later thirties impulsively decided to explore a random roadside hall of mirrors on her way home from work.”  
“Those are some interesting questions, most of which I cannot answer,” he walked toward them and then folded his lean frame to sit on the ground with them. He opened a satchel he carried and handed them each an apple. She looked at the green skin of the familiar fruit suspiciously. “Go ahead, eat it. It will not harm you. It is exactly like the apples where you are from. The sour ones.”  
She looked at it again then looked at the elf, at least she presumed he was an elf based on the shape of his ears. Her brows drew together as she took a bite, still suspicious.  
“If I had wanted to kill you, it would already be done,” he said, as if the statement meant nothing to her. “You don’t know how to use the power you seem to command. It would be easy to drain the barrier you cast. And, I wouldn’t wait for the slow death of poison. I find myself impatient as we near the end. Besides, I think you might be the answer to a question I have long been asking. Mostly, of my friend here,” he gestured to Sandal who was munching away at his apple, looking between the two of them.  
“Alright, ask your question then. If I answer it, do you send me home?”  
“I am afraid my question is not simple,” he said.  
“What is it with cryptic fantasy characters?” the words flew out of Flora’s mouth before she could stop them.  
“I suppose it is a literary trope, even here. Varric would most assuredly attest to and make use of it,” he said, smiling slightly. “I am Solas. I live here and I thought I knew how the Eluvians worked, but those seem to be acting of their own accord today.”  
“Right, the set pieces from bad children’s fantasy movies? That’s what they are called?” she took another bite. “So, they brought me here? Sentient mirrors?”  
“No. They have no thought of their own. But the magic which powers them might,” he said, his own brows drawing together.  
“Like a djinn when you don’t specify your wish properly and makes whatever you thought might be good an exercise in pain and loneliness?”  
“That would be a desire demon who made its way into your world through the Fade. And no, not like that. More like, I kept asking a question and it might have turned into a spell and then acted on the world. Or both our worlds, rather. You do look remarkably like her. You could almost be twins”  
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the two syllables. She was stalling for time while she processed the new information. It was rather a lot. Magic. Demons. The Fade. Her doppelganger. “I am afraid that answer means I have so many more questions now.”  
“Yes, I rather expected you might. It would seem we will be spending the better part of several weeks answering them.” He got up from the ground and brushed himself off. “Come on then.”  
He extended a hand to help her from the ground. She hesitated briefly, and took it. He gestured for her to follow him onto a floating bit of rock and flicked his hand to have them speeding away. She looked over her shoulder at the mirror which brought her here. Her stomach plunged; her heart beat fast and hard, causing her to feel as though she was swaying slightly with the force of it. She thought she might not see the mirror again. The implications of the thought made her sick to her stomach.  
“You’ll remember how to get us back there, right?” she asked. “When you send me home?”  
“I was shocked to find you there. It is the oldest of the Eluvian and has not worked in my long memory. Even in all my studies and trips to the Fade, I have never been able to understand how it worked. All I have seen are people leaving through it a long, long time ago. I am sorry,” he said.  
She could hear the sympathy in his voice. He knew his words would only cause the bubbles of anxiety she felt to coalesce into something larger and more unmanageable. Something scarier and heartbreaking. She tried to shove it to the side. “I will not think about it while on a speeding rock in the middle of the sky. There are more important things, like keeping my balance and not falling off into the nothing which surrounds us, to concentrate on,” she thought. “There will be time, weeks in fact, if Solas is right, to sort through this when the ground beneath my feet isn’t moving.  
The rock docked, she supposed that is what you would say about a rock, pressing itself against a larger piece of stone floating in this space. In fact, the largest she had seen. Flora looked around and realized everything else orbited this. And it was truly everything. There were bits of carpet, a chair, books, a wine glass, pots, and other detritus of a household which swirled around this space in a slow tornado. The walls crumbled. A set of stairs went to nowhere. Another set jutted out at an odd angle and seemed to connect to something drifting several meters away. More mirrors passed. She could see a rock with a bed pass by through one of the glassless windows, its arch partially collapsed when the wall above it fell down.  
“This must have been beautiful before,” she said, taking a minute to see the details in what remained.  
“It is my home,” Solas said.  
He led her through a series of passages, up a staircase, and strode over an opening between two pieces of rock. The carpet, what was left of it, was worn and ancient. He opened a door and they entered a room filled with everything. There were maps on a table, piles of curled paper, books, a few chairs, a bulbous looking device with what appeared to be a trumpet on one end standing on a slight pedestal. It glowed green and pulsed. It looked like what a steampunk teenager imagined an antediluvian phonograph might look like. She really hoped it didn’t play records.  
He gestured her to a chair on one side of a mostly intact fireplace. The mantle and grate were still there. The flue, the chimney, and the back of the fireplace were all missing. So was the wall. She sat. The chair was hard and over stuffed. The kind of chair one always imagined to be in the library of a country manor house but which was always considered uncomfortable by the inhabitants who, more often than not, regretted buying it. Solas flicked his wrist and a fire started in the grate as he sat down in the chair across from her. Sandal, who had followed them, sat at the desk and started to write. The rhythmic scratching of his quill carried across what was left of the room.  
Flora watched an upside-down tree make its way across the space behind the fireplace, giving the impression, for a few minutes that the living, green leaves were on fire. She felt the prod of what she assumed to be magic, around the edges of her mind, and over her skin. It felt soft. Like hugging your favourite stuffed animal after a nightmare; warm and comforting. She wanted to wrap herself in the feeling. Leaning back in the chair, she closed her eyes and sighed, her breath ragged. She stayed like that for a minute maybe two, until she heard the quiet tread of feet on carpet, the stride long and languid, and the clatter of china on a tray.  
“Tea will help with the shock,” she heard Solas say.  
“Not enchantment?” Sandal asked from across the room, she could her the upward inflection of the question.  
“No, my friend, it is just tea; nothing magical,” she assumed Solas was pouring her a cup of tea as she heard the slosh of water and a spoon gently hitting the sides of a china cup. Sandal ruffled the papers he was working on and hummed, contented with the answer but not rising to get any for himself.  
Flora smiled at his concern, not willing to give up the warmth which was starting to permeate her bones. She was not usually this complacent, usually acting on her own behalf, ensuring her own safety. However, her mind was processing too many things and it was nice to give the burden away. She snuggled as far into the corner of the chair as its stuffing would allow. A cup was gently pressed into her hand.  
“Drink,” Solas said, she warmed to his soft tone.  
She opened her eyes and smelled the steam rising from the cup, she didn’t recognize any of the scents. They were herbaceous. That was all she could tell. It disappointed her. This was something she would know at home. She could feel the edges of her mouth pull downwards in a frown. Her anxiety about getting home again came over her swiftly, sending her heart to beating furiously in her chest once more. Her hands shook slightly, spilling some of the steaming tea from the cup, burning as it landed.  
Solas placed a hand on her shoulder, pressing her back into the warmth of the chair. “You are going to need to keep your wits about you,” warmth radiated from his hand. She looked up at him and could feel her eyes widen as she realized he was causing the feeling which comforted her not a few minutes ago.  
“Magic?” she asked.  
“Old magic,” he said. “It should feel familiar to you, yes?”  
She nodded, the weight of the question causing her movements to slow. He let go and moved back to his own chair.  
“It is as I thought then,” he stared at her, the confusion in his features resolving into confidence and certainty. His long limbs tensed and he sprang from his chair, striding towards a set of shelves. He pulled out several books. They looked old, the kind with faded, frayed bindings and metal clasps to keep the parchment inside from curling with age. He came back to her, holding out a particularly thick book. She placed her tea cup on the floor and took the book in both hands.  
“Can you read it?”  
She undid the metal catches and opened the front cover, careful not to pull the binding back too fast or too hard. There was no frontispiece. The book was so old it started directly on page one, obviously written in an age where paper was precious. The writing was strange, the shapes of the letters slightly wrong, like looking at the difference between the cursive handwriting of North Americans versus Europeans. It took her a moment to see the letters and to follow them properly.  
“I am surprised the ink hasn’t bled or faded,” she whispered.  
“Enchantment,” Sandal supplied helpfully, his quill still scratching over the parchment.  
“Exactly, but can you read it?”  
“Yes,” she said, moving her finger across the page under a line of text. “It looks like an old language where I am from. One we do not use anymore.”  
“It isn’t used here either and only one or two remain who can speak it,” Solas said, closing the cover of the book and taking it from her hands. “And this one?” he asked, handing her another.  
This book was newer, but only slightly. There was a frontispiece bearing the title and the author but nothing else. It was clearly handwritten, like the other, written in the gap between the invention of the printing press and paper losing its value. “Yes,” she said, her voice still quiet. “A language we still use, especially in the scientific fields. We use it to name things.”  
Solas handed the other book back to her. “Then this is where we will start,” he said turning away.  
Flora placed the books carefully on the floor just to the side of her chair. “There are other things I need to know first.”  
“All in time,” he said. “For now, this is enough.” Solas turned and left.  
Sandal set down his quill, the vanes brushed against the parchment and Flora could hear it in the stillness of the room. He picked up the tea tray, Flora scrambled to pick up her books and tea cup to follow him. He led her through a large, and what once must have been grand, archway to a mostly intact hallway. There were some doors, suggesting rooms behind them.  
Sandal stopped in front of a door and started to balance the tray on one hand to open the it. The room was something out of a medieval enthusiast’s dreams, except with glass in the large window frames. “So maybe an anachronistic devotee of the style,” she thought. There were three windows along the far wall, all of them in clear glass but the lead cames were made into elven figures and animals. “Stained glass without the colours,” she thought, crossing the room, over a plush green carpet, to gaze out into the white immensity which surrounded this place. There was a cushioned bench under the window, Flora sat on it and brushed her fingers over the glass. It was fine and smooth, and without the imperfections and bubbles in old windows which often enabled enterprising students to be able to burn papers in old libraries to set back the exam schedule.  
There were green velvet drapes on the windows to block out any chill or draft. There were sheer silk curtains hanging behind them, to diffuse the light when the sun might have shone here. Flora turned as she heard Sandal slide the tea tray onto a table flanked by soft looking armchairs in front of the fireplace. The fire was green and its glow oddly comforting. “It is a cheery blaze,” she thought. “The room must always have had a happy hearth.”  
She placed her cup gently on the tray. “Thank you,” she said to Sandal. “This is more than I could have expected.”  
He smiled and nodded, and turned with a brief wave. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving her alone. Sandal’s presence did not distract her from her thoughts but he provided a reason not to display them. As he left, she felt her composure and physical strength diminish. She reached out a shaking hand to the back of one of the arm chairs to support herself as her knees threatened to give way under the weight of new anxieties. Horrifying new realizations leading to a set of feelings she didn’t realize she had for home. It wasn’t the family and friends she left there, but the familiarity and the ease she found in her life.  
“Just be grateful you didn’t leave a spouse behind,” she told herself as she willed her knees to support her. “There must be a way home. Solas will know of something. Or there could be something in one of his books, surely, he hasn’t read the whole library,” she said this to convince herself to stand upright and to give herself some sense of agency. She could read and find the solution. She was good at research. She could get herself home.  
Flora stiffened her knees and lifted her weight from the back of the chair. She straightened her spine and rolled her shoulders back. She could take on this challenge. She would. She ignored the whisper at the edges of her resolve which said she might not ever get home. She looked around the room to distract herself. There were books scattered all throught it. They were smaller and newer, stacked on tables, the mantle, and on small shelves. She picked one up on her way past. The Randy Dowager, sounded like just the sort of thing to distract her. Underneath it was a Hard in High Town, by Varric Tethras. Solas mentioned a Varric near the mirror. “Maybe I should read this instead,” she said.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“Try again,” Solas said, Flora could hear impatience edging his tone. “This is the first skill mages all over Thedas learn.”  
She concentrated and attempted to light a fire once again. A regular fire. Not the cheery green blaze from her bedroom. Which she had been informed this morning was veil fire; a spell which brought back the memories of flames. She was glad her supposition was correct; her room had always been a happy place. After a night spent lost in a vast white expanse, not unlike where she was now, but brighter and filled with spirits. And darker things, stalking at the edges of her vision. Her feet tangled in the long night dress and the sheets; she confused her conscious body and her mental self; couldn’t separate them. She couldn’t get away in her dreams. The knot she made of the bed meant waking in a panic. She needed to remember there was some comfort in this world.  
“Draw the power through you, think of how you want it to appear in the world and then let it unfurl from your fingers,” Solas said. It was probably the first thing he said to her which made sense.  
She closed her eyes and thought of the cheery fire, still crackling away in her room. She felt the build of potential in her center for the first time, she felt she would burst with it, like a fit of stifled giggles or hiccups. She rolled her arm forward and extended her hand, bending it slightly at as fire spilled from her finger tips, pouring green flames into the stone rimmed pit. It crackled and popped. It snapped and stuttered. It was merry. It made her feel joyful just to look at it.  
“Interesting,” was all Solas said before waving his hand through the air and extinguishing it. “But it wasn’t correct. Again.”  
As the hours passed and she became exhausted, her fires, when she cast them properly, became small and weary. They consumed themselves. She felt tired to her very marrow. Her arm ached from the repeated motion.  
“You can leave now. We shall continue tomorrow,” Solas said, waving her away. She was grateful to get back to her room, to the books she hoped would lead to a way home. To the cheery, snapping blaze there. To a bath and maybe another few chapters Varric’s ridiculous hard-boiled crime noir about a medieval private investigator.  
She wandered through the floating, hulking ruin. Examining small details as she went. The clear mark of an explosive blast along a wall. A hardened puddle of candle wax on the floor. The patches where the carpet had been torn, not worn, away. The perfect evenness of the stone floors and the walls which trilled slightly when she trailed her finger tips along them.  
She made it back to her room, only to find the cheery fire gone. The only light spilling in from the white waste. She absently flicked her hand toward the fireplace and was surprised to hear the roar and sputter of a fire coming to life. She stared, shocked, at what she just done and then her need for a bath to relax aching muscles took over.  
Sandal appeared with food a few minutes after she wrapped herself in a warm green velvet robe. It was long and trailed across the floor. She kicked the train of it out of the way so it wouldn’t get caught under the door as she opened it. He smiled at her as he put the tray with bread, cheese, fruit, and nuts on the table, with a glass of wine. The green of the fire accentuated a similar shade in the dry white wine.  
Then he unloaded the satchel he was carrying. It was a bit like watching Mary Poppins unpack, a sheaf of parchment came out, bottles of ink, several more books, quills, sand, sealing wax, seals, blotters; everything she would need to take notes on her studies. There was an empty book cover as well. Which Sandal pointed to and said, “Enchantment.” He then wrote a small note on paper and inserted it into the book, where it immediately attached itself to the spine.  
“Thank you,” she said, smiling slightly.  
He turned and left, as he had the night before, with a smile and a wave. 

The next day proved worse. Another night tangled in her own unconscious and bed sheets, covering her ears against the screaming at the edges of a shrinking circle meant she found herself dodging shock spells in the library on little sleep. Her patience with her tutor was fraying.  
“That spell is a shield in your hands, block with it. If I were your enemy you would be dead by now,” Solas called out as she caught a nasty static shock across her left arm. “Spirits help me, I sound like Cullen.” He dropped his head into his other hand as he flicked another electric charge at her, with no effort and without even paying attention.  
She ducked and tried to concentrate. “It is awfully difficult to learn this skill when you keep attacking me.”  
“Better to learn it this way, then you know you can always rely on it,”, he flicked another charge at her. “You will have to learn to concentrate during a crisis. This world is not without its perils.”  
“Shouldn’t we start with easier things?”  
“Yesterday was easy,” he said, sending a blast of cold air which chilled her and made it difficult to move the small joints in her fingers as the blood rushed away from her extremities.  
She thought of being warm again. Of ending whatever excuse for practice this was. She felt warmth steal over her, settle all around her, close her in. She felt safe in the cocoon of her thoughts. She breathed deeply, and the barrier expanded with her, and it grew further as she breathed out. And it didn’t dissipate when he waved his hand.  
“Now see if you can keep it,” he said, flicking his hand up. And then he left the room.  
An electrical cage formed around her. There was nowhere she could go to escape the charge. It shocked her if she moved to much, jumping across her heart and making it physically skip beats; even through the barrier. The lightening roiled within itself and reached for her, the only thing through which it could flow. She concentrated on feeling warm. The feeling of safety. She closed her eyes and held onto the image for as long as possible. She didn’t feel the strikes of current. And when she opened her eyes, when the crackling stopped, all that was left was a small frisson of purple electricity which quickly ran itself out in the carpet. 

A dragon chased her through her dreams, she could feel air move as its leather wings flapped behind her. Its nacreous scales glinting in the luminous waste. And then it swooped downwards and she ran, through the forest of screaming spindle legged demons which had gathered around her. They clawed at her. Swiped at her. They left deep gouges in her skin. Blood ran out of her. She couldn’t outrun the dragon, even in her own dream. It caught her up in its great claws and flew. Up. Her heart slammed into her ribs and her stomach was left behind. It closed his wings around her and she saw only black, engulfed by its leathery folds. And knew no more.  
She woke, all at once, like she had the previous two mornings. She swiped at her eyes, feeling the trail of wet left in her hand’s wake. It was too heavy, too thick, to be sweat from a night of anxious dreaming. She looked at her hand, only to find it dripping blood onto the sheets, from a long gash.  
“Mustn’t scream,” she said to herself. “Panicking is not an option,” she said against the rising anxiety in her own voice.  
She levered herself up in bed, now aware of the pain her torn flesh was causing, of the blood pooling around her. “This can’t be how I die,” she said, her heart speeding up, pumping blood out faster.  
“At least not today,” Solas said, opening her door. “We shall take this opportunity to learn healing magic.”  
“How?”  
“Mythal found you in the Fade,” he said, as though it made perfect sense. “Now, hold your hand just over this,” he said, positioning her hand just above the deepest, bloodiest gash on her arm.  
She tried to breathe; she really did. And to hold her arms exactly as he said but the sight of so much blood left her faint and shaky.  
“You will just have to get used to it. Look inside it, find the edges and knit it back together in your mind,” he said, with more patience than she had come to consider usual.  
He watched her attempt it and then lose focus, only pulling a fraction of the wound together. “Breathe. Try again,” he said.  
“Some of the perils this world offers?” It came out breathier and more panicked than she would like.  
“Not always, no. These are the dangers of the Fade and sometimes they spill out into this world. The demons are spirits twisted from their purpose and they seek entry. Through rifts or through the possession of people.” He watched critically as she closed another few centimeters along her arm. She could feel the light touch of magic all over her and looked up at him suspiciously. “Making sure there is nothing worse,” he said, pulling a chair over from the fireplace.  
She breathed in and tried again. Each time resulting in a few more centimeters closing along her arm and less blood leaking out of this wound.  
“It gets easier with practice,” he said, slouching in the comfortable chair and crossing his left ankle over his right knee.  
“What a perfect opportunity,” she said, breathing again and trying to close more. She focused on the veins in her arm and attempted to close those first. And then the muscle, putting the fibres back together. Checking the ligaments against what she assumed was an accurate anatomical representation in her mind.  
“You are seeing inside yourself,” he said.  
“This is the most surreal medical imaging I have ever had.”  
He hummed in response and prodded her again with more magic. Deeper this time. She could feel it travelling along her blood vessels.  
She made it to the end of this wound, the blood had stopped flowing so freely from the shallower scratches and scrapes. She healed them anyway. “Practice makes perfect,” she thought, the acerbic tone catching her slightly by surprise.  
“Who is Mythal?” she asked, to keep her mind from the blood still seeping into the sheets.  
“Ah, now that is a tragic story I do not feel up to telling today,” he said, watching her progress.  
“What is the Fade?”  
“It is the source of all magic in this world. The home of the gods. Where dreamers go when they sleep.”  
“And where demons live,” she finished for him, anxiety edging her tone. She felt like a child confessing to her fear of the monster under the bed.  
“Yes, those too. But not for you. Not any longer,” she looked across at him and realized he would be just as cryptic as he pleased. “When you finish that, there is more to learn.”  
“Can’t we take a rest day?” she asked, as he shut the door. “I guess that means no.” 

The rock floating in the empty space exploded as she hit it with a fire ball, the sharp-edged debris fell over them, dirt sticking to Flora’s face.  
“Switch again. Do not become overly reliant on any one element,” Solas said, pointing to the next object.  
These spells were harder. They exhausted her. Instead of delving into her feelings of warmth, comfort, and happiness, these were reliant on anger, determination, frustration. Emotions which were all tied to her anxiety. She tried to focus on the memories of being determined to do something, find a plant sample in the wilderness or publishing a paper. Tasks which required personal drive and inner strength as opposed to the ones tied to frustrating meetings with colleagues or disciplining a student who had plagiarized. The stronger her emotion was, the more destructive the spell. Which, at the beginning, meant the emptions which were simpler and easier to access caused the most damage. They made her feel strung out and wrung out with every casting, as she not only had to expend the energy to form the element from nothing but she had to battle her emotions with every flick of her wrist. Calling up the positive ones was a harder task, as it meant fighting past her anxiety to see the positive sides of events.  
She reached deep to find the determination she felt when intervening on behalf of a student, needing to see them pass. She flicked her wrist forward, feeling the pull of newly healed flesh, and let loose an ice spike. It hit the target, shattering it with the force of the cold and the projectile. Ice, rock, and dirt caught her across the cheek, slicing deep. She could feel the blood running down. Solas flicked his wrist and sent a ball of lightening her way, causing her to raise her barrier.  
“Heal yourself and hit the next one,” he said, he flicked a quick succession of lightning strikes at her, each hitting and causing the nimbus around her to shake a little.  
She held one hand to her cheek and lashed out with her own shock spell, hitting the top of a ruined arch drifting by. It splintered, turning into brittle rocks with wicked edges. The kind which will slice anything open. She forced herself to focus and maintain the barrier, lest she be caught again.  
“It will become easier with time,” he said, having to speak loudly to be heard over the debris, the explosions, and the lightning he kept casting.  
“It would be easier to learn these one at a time.”  
“Yes. And that would work if you were kept locked away in a tower, never to face danger. But you must survive in this world. You need to be able to rely on yourself; your power and mental fortitude.”  
“There is no danger here. Just you,” she said, forcing another fire ball out to immolate a new piece of debris.  
“I am more a danger than you know.”  
“Yes. Yes.”  
“This is not the world you will have to face,” he said, taking aim with his staff and unleashing a barrage of fire at her. “This place is separate. Safe.”  
“I don’t know what is out there, I know,” she said, forcing herself to focus on keeping her barrier up. She breathed and pushed hard, and a blast emanated from her, a shockwave which started in her heart and pushed its way through the world to knock Solas back.  
“New,” he said, raising his left eyebrow. “Interesting. Again.”  
The day continued like this. Eventually, Flora felt her frustration drain away, she could access the emotions she needed with a new ease and fluidity. It was almost therapeutic. Almost. The hours passed. She could not recall a time when she was more exhausted. And still, she kept casting, drawing more up from within herself. Until Solas called a halt to the day.  
She found comfort in trailing her fingers along the wall, hearing the happy trilling from the stones. It made her feel light. She could almost skip down the hall to her room. She could face a long evening alone, studying in obscure languages, with some degree of equanimity. Resolve settled into her posture, as she pulled her shoulders back, determined to face the books and find a way home. To finish these ones, learn their secrets, and move onto the next. Find the pieces of the puzzle she was sure existed.  
She opened the door to her room and lit the fire, its cheery snapping and cracking making her smile. She spent hours poring over the ancient texts, learning about magic. She dipped her quill in the ink pots to take notes and shoved completed pages into the enchanted book cover. She ate the nuts and fruit, absently, from the trencher which had been left for her on the table and sipped wine. “The scene might be charming,” she thought. “If I were in my home. Well, if it looked like this. Perhaps it is worth redecorating when I return. Although, maybe a style less medieval would be worth exploring.” 

She waited for the dragon. It seemed like hours in the timeless space. The rhythms of the weightless white expanse she had begun to understand, there was a time to do work and a time to sleep. Here, there was no sense of the minutes or the seconds as they ticked on. Just the speed of the demons as they moved closer, devouring the ground on their long spindly legs; venturing ever closer. She reached within for the barrier and found she could cast it here. It made her feel safe but the angry screaming and howling continued as they stalked around her, close enough to catch at her with their vicious claws. Flora pulled for the upswelling of resolve and focus she found which had sent Solas stumbling back earlier in the day. Finding it and centering it, causing the shock wave to pour out of her and sending the demons flying from her, some of the screaming changed. They sounded injured now.  
The dragon came. Black and luminous. He snatched her up in his claws, and folded her gently into himself. Flora looked beneath them and saw the hulking mass of a black city, creatures baying at the gates. She saw karst formations of spindly demons standing still, waiting for something to stray. A crackle of lightning flashed by her as they passed over a formidable looking scaly and horned demon. He bellowed with rage; his prize having passed him.  
They landed, softer than she would have expected for such a large beast. The dragon lowered its claws and Flora scrambled to clutch at the ankle joint rather than be crushed as the dragon dropped forward on all fours. Given last night’s adventures, she realized if she died in this space, she would cease to exist. She panicked as she reached for purchase in its shale like scales. Her fingers scrabbling down the smooth surface. The leg of the beast was far too large to wrap herself around. She clenched everything, holding on with every last bit of her strength. She shut her eyes tightly as they neared the ground. The dragon was careful, placing the leg gingerly and slowly down. “Probably because you are interfering with the flex of whatever the draconic equivalent of an Achilles tendon is,” she thought. She opened her eyes, only to find herself on a wide ridge, a rock wall rose above them and fell below them. The black city visible in the distance. The demons below, sought to climb the wall but their claws couldn’t sink into the stone. She was safe here; if any place could be called that in a dream dimension inhabited with breathing nightmares.  
“Excellent job, little one,” a woman’s voice, the one who whispered in the flash of blue light a few days before.  
Flora forced her muscles to let go, to unspool herself from the dragon’s leg, starting with the fingers of her left hand and working all the way over to the right side, until she was standing on her own. Shaken and shaky. The dragon flew off, its great leather wings swirling the air as it ascended. She pressed herself into the cliff face at her back to avoid being blown over the edge.  
“Some would call him an arch-demon. Others an elder god,” the woman continued. She was bald, like Solas, and so her ears were noticeable but she had massive horns curling out of her head, all framed with a steel circlet, the center point tall and wickedly dangerous. It extended downwards over the space between her eyebrows and from the ears to cover her cheekbones, highlighting their height and fineness. She was awesome, in the oldest sense of the word. It was a bit like meeting a more intimidating version of the smartest most capable person she had ever worked for, to the point where Flora felt the urge to kneel and supplicate herself before the woman. To beg for favours, or more likely forgiveness. No, that was wrong. The thought flashed quickly through her mind. This woman had justice as her gift.  
“Ah, yes, you do recognize it,” the woman said. “I thought you might.” She laughed lightly, it trilled. And instantly made Flora happy, like the stones. “This seems like the perfect place for an overly dramatic introduction to what was once a god. I am Mythal. The All Mother. And Andraste. And lately, the Witch of the Wilds.” She swept her hand forward and bent slightly at the waist, a mockery of a stage bow.  
“Flora,” she said, forcibly resisting the urge to kneel and wincing slightly with the effort.  
“That will always be the way your magic responds to me, I am afraid. Best to just let it flow through you. It will pass in a moment.”  
“Alright,” she tried to find the emotion within herself and let it go through her. It swirled in her blood and she felt it in her heart, before it made its way to her lungs and left on the air as she breathed.  
“Now, we can talk. It is so much easier when the person you have selected as your voice can approach you as an equal,” she said, the trilling laughter hiding in between the words.  
“Selected?” The word registered in Flora’s mind. “You chose me? You brought me here.”  
“Not by myself, no. So much more power was required than I have at my disposal in this state. You are what I need to save this world.”  
“If I do that, will you send me back?”  
“If you save it, there will be no going back. It will need you for as long as you live,” Mythal said, shaking her head slightly, the polished steel under her cheek bones gleaming as it caught the light.  
“If I choose not to save it, can I go back?” Flora said, hope creeping into the statement, making it sound more callous than she intended.  
“Yes. But my purpose is to make you want to save it; to take on this task to spare the one I love from himself. To save the people I have worked so hard to protect, even in this disembodied state.” Mythal’s expression turned soft around the eyes, her entire body relaxed at the thought of her lover. And then she breathed in, pulling her shoulders straighter on a sigh and hardened her gaze once again.  
“I don’t want to be anyone’s saviour. That usually gets people killed. Besides, I am a botanist. I wouldn’t know how to save an entire world. Just one person from possibly eating the wrong thing in the forest; if I happened to be there at the same time.”  
“No one is born with the ability to save the world. Purpose is not innate, it is found,” Mythal looked her full in the face, her gaze harsh. Flora startled. The goddess softened again. “I would prefer to make you care. To give you a purpose, here. To make you my voice; my equal.”  
“But my life. I had friends, family. People I loved,” she said, pleading edged out her argument. “I like my home.”  
“You like the convenience of knowing your home but you do not love it. I can see inside you, to the core of your being. You had people you tolerated, people with whom you could pass the time, there was no one you really loved.”  
“I liked my job. I liked knowing things; studying my world. That is my purpose.”  
“Yes, but more can be found here,” Mythal swept her arm out to encompass the space they over looked.  
“Arguing that my life in my world was inconsequential and lonely is not likely to get me to care about this one,” Flora said, feeling like little more than a petulant child, what Mythal said was true, and she felt the sting and the sulk.  
“No, I do not expect that. Nor do I expect these arguments will eventually wear you down. I have others which will work better. But perhaps it is best to start at the beginning.” Mythal said. “Rather than expecting you to understand.”


	3. Chapter 3

“It starts with a murder,” Mythal said, sitting on the cliff’s edge, her armor-clad legs dangling over the side.   
“Because these stories always do,” Flora said, leaning on the rock wall behind her because Mythal’s precarious position worried her and the solidity of the rock eased the fear that a demon could approach her from behind.   
“Removing the obstacle to unlimited power often means death,” she gestured to herself.   
“Then why do you care so much, if people do not want you? So much so they removed you from existence?”   
“I love my people. I banished the titans for them and made the moons to light their long nights. I gave them love and affection. And righted the wrongs committed against them,” Mythal turned wistful and looked over the expanse. Flora slid down the wall to sit on the ground, she tucked the velvet dressing gown around her feet.   
“And someone wanted you dead for that?”   
“No, the first time was because I opposed enslaving our own people to increase our power. They used the excuse of me having taken a lover, Fen Harel. My husband did not take kindly to the idea that, in my later years, I did not espouse his person or values. And so, they held a tribunal and then sundered my consciousness from my body.”   
“And that is who you want me to save?” The question sounded cold and logical, even as she said it, but sarcasm and logic were all she had left, she couldn’t let sympathy consume her because it would open the door to fear and anxiety, which she was only just managing to keep out.   
“No. They have grown corrupt, locked away in the furthest reaches of the Fade. They buried me deep within the bodies of the banished titans. They corrupted my form to keep me from finding it. A new type of jail.”   
“Not going to lie, this really doesn’t sound like a place I want to save. I try to stay out of murders in my world, particularly political ones,” Flora said, tracing her finger in the dust which covered the ledge.   
“Fen Harel brought down the Veil as punishment, locking them away. But it sundered our world, destroyed our great monuments, and disconnected our people; diminished them and so they were enslaved once again, by others. But he didn’t know that. He spent the ages looking for my spirit in the Fade. He loved me so. Still does. Even after all this time. He slept in my fortress, high in the mountains, and dreamed himself here, every day.” Mythal’s face softened, the hard edges around her eyes dropping and the steely expression around her mouth became almost wistful. She was beautiful when she thought of him. It was beyond pretty or even handsome but sheer and terrifying loveliness. A sort of melancholic beauty Flora had only ever read about and had never been able to imagine, until now.   
“While he slept, I floated in the world I made. Eventually, I found someone who wanted what I did. Justice. For my people and hers. And so, I shared myself with her. Occupying her body. We accomplished great things. We marched. We fought. We freed her people and mine from slavery. Until she was murdered. Burning on a great pyre surrounded in flames and smoke until someone took pity on her, overcome by his own conscience, and stabbed her to death with his great sword. The pain that caused us both,” she shook her head, defeatedly. “She drifted to the Fade and became a religious icon, inspiring thousands to a new faith. And I came back into the world, drifting, until I found someone else who needed justice. A much smaller justice but the size of the wrong does not matter, only the righting of it.” Mythal sighed, it was heavy and full. Flora felt like she was trying to let go of all the actions committed against her and mustering the strength to save the world one more time in that single exhalation.   
“Why try again? I mean third time is the charm and all that but it really seems like the world doesn’t want you,” she said, looking at Mythal.   
“I will always try for justice for my people. But in this case, it is for Fen Harel. He would destroy the Veil to bring back power to our people. To resurrect the old. He would unleash an army of demons. He would corrupt the magic which exists. He would release the gods. But there are things in the Fade more dangerous and corrupted than my poor body. Things which he has not been able to see in his dreams because there is no equivalent in the world; no place where he can access them. The gods have nurtured these, grown them. Loved them. And they would destroy him. And I cannot have that,” Mythal looked at her hands, tightly wound together in her lap. She did not look like a goddess now. Her beauty hadn’t diminished but her concern for one individual had reduced her stature. “But I would have you care about this world and the people in it enough to save it. To show you the good. To walk you through the dreams of children and young parents. To show you the mind of someone in love for the first time. To have you understand someone who takes a last look at their spouse before the shroud is tied. I want you to see these little joys and sorrows and know you can be the author of them.” She got up then and walked back to Flora, extending her hand to help her from the ground. Flora placed her hand tentatively within Mythal’s grasp, it shook slightly but was steadied by her firm grip. “We have far to go and much to see before the night is over.”   
Flora shook out the folds of her velvet dressing and kicked the train behind her. The medieval anachronist had been responsible for choosing her night clothes, and she had yet to find anything better in the mostly empty closet. Mythal looked at her with a smirk, “It is a far easier and more dignified thing to just hold it up in front of you rather than letting it drag across the ground.”   
She picked up the train, as instructed, and held it gingerly by her right thigh. Much like she had seen in Victorian paintings which romanticized the medieval period. Mythal crossed to the stone wall, and pressed her hand into it. The stone fell away and a tunnel appeared. Flora looked in and the darkness was overwhelming. The edges of black stone swallowed by the absence of light; the slight shimmer of the wall gone millimeters into the yawning space. Her right hand twisted in the train, clutching at it, like a child holding a security blanket and peering into an open closet in the smallest hours of the morning. She took a small step forward and stopped. But then she remembered, nightlights always kept the monsters at bay, real or imagined. And so, she reached into herself and found the flash and flare of cheery light. In less than a second, green fire overflowed from her palm, casting light on the smooth tunnel walls. And she felt at ease again.   
“It is good you finally remembered,” Mythal said. She gestured her forward with a flick of her wrist so reminiscent of the way Solas cast shock spells that Flora immediately called up a barrier. Mythal laughed, a trilling and tripping sound.   
She stepped into the tunnel and moved forward, the walls were smooth, just like the outside. She wondered whether Mythal created the ledge too. The thought made the fire in her hand flare and burn brighter for a moment. She really hoped it wasn’t a manifestation of answering her own questions. She really didn’t need magic acting as another voice in the discussions she had with herself.   
Mythal walked behind, trailing her hand along the wall, closing the gap as they moved. “You can do this too,” she said, as Flora cast a glance over her shoulder. “Not all magic is surviving a battle and healing wounds. It is about manipulating the world. About making it to suit your needs.” Mythal took several quick steps forward and walked next to her, the tunnel widening as she did so. She lightly touched the wall, willing the space behind them to close. And to her surprise, it did.   
The end of the tunnel came suddenly. Almost as if Mythal willed it there. The fire flared in answer once again and Flora glared at it. And they stepped out into a room, it was small but well kept. The wooden floor was scrubbed. A middle-aged couple sat on the bed, cradling a new infant, the evidence of birth all around them.   
“We did it, Maggie, she’s all ours. And we can keep her safe,” the man swept a lock of hair behind the woman’s ear and kissed her cheek while she looked fondly at the infant, stroking her face with a fingertip.   
“This woman has relived this every night for the last three years,” Mythal said. “It is when she realized they were free. They had fought for years in the prisons of the Circles. And for years afterwards. Never allowed to love and certainly never allowed to have children for fear more mages might be born.” Mythal looked at them fondly, the softness appeared around her eyes again but the weight on her shoulders seemed to increase as her obvious affection and care added immediate burdens.   
Mythal took a step away and the scene changed quickly, disorienting Flora as she struggled to move forward with her. Making her steps match the goddess’.   
Soon the colours resolved themselves into another dreamer. A pre-teen girl stood by the edge of a bustling market square, stalls lining the outside with sellers calling for the attention of shoppers who were more likely to gossip than buy. She bounced up on her toes trying to see over the heads of the crowd. She could see a man grab her sister’s arm and pull her roughly to him. Her sister shoved and twisted but he only pulled again. The girl’s fingers twitched, as she watched. There was nothing she could do and it made her anxious, Flora could see it on her face. The man howled in pain and frustration, letting her sister go, as purple lightening fizzled on the ground.   
Her sister, finally free, and ran towards her and the girl looked panicked. Shocked. Her eyes darting around, looking for a place to hide. The man spit and sputtered his way over to them.   
“She is possessed,” the man yelled, spit gathering in the corners of his mouth.   
And the girl cowered in the shelter of her older sister’s arms but she was just as frightened. “I don’t want to be taken away. I am scared of the Circle. There is no way home,” the girl said, sobbing and gulping in her panic.   
“I won’t let them,” her older sister said, anxiety written in her frown and the lines around her eyes, and she tightened her grip.   
A brief touch on the shoulder was all the signal she received that help was there. “With time you will learn to control it,” the woman said to her, a soft French lilt to her words. “She felt threatened and defensive, as most young mages do when they come into their power,” she said, wrapping her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Which means you did something wrong.” She looked at the man, glared, until he backed away a half step.   
The older woman turned them away from the man still sputtering and spitting his rage. “We shall see about school for you,” the woman said, hugging the younger girl closer to her side. “Let’s go talk with your parents.”   
“Thank you, Grand Enchanter,” the older sister said, and the young girl’s shoulders sagged in relief.   
Mythal took another step forward, creating another swirl of confusion as she selected the next dreamer. Flora heard so many voices, people in every emotional state, reliving some small moment of their lives, deep in the Fade, as they dreamed. A man’s voice. It was sonorous and musical but fearful, and, at turns, deeply sad, as though he failed in some monumental task. She recognized it from the flash of light in the mirror. Flora caught the edges of spirits, watching from the outside.   
Mythal took her through more small stories of relief and victory; of love and loss. Small bits of time the dreamers felt were important. Some reflected world events, like the universal relief felt when the sky was closed and demons stopped pouring out. Some were only connected to their lives, like a woman receiving a letter from her brother who had been long out of contact because of his personal demons. Women celebrating their marriage, an elf and a dwarf, by pulling the bell ropes in the cathedral and setting off a grand cacophony. The elf catching her partner on the upswing of the rope and kissing her soundly. A moustachioed man travelling to see his lover, a giant horned, muscular beast of a man with an eyepatch, who swept him up into a fierce hug and kissed him softly. A woman, dressed in silk and so many ruffles and furbelows, twirling around after she paid off the last of her family’s historical creditors. A woman in a large field tent, unbuckling a formidable set of blood-spattered armor, and picking up a romance novel. Written for her by Varric Tethras; a gift. A dwarven man rescuing an infant from a dark passage filled with monsters, there was anxiety behind this dream, loss. Flora couldn’t put her finger on it but she felt she knew something about this. She saw Varric, gloating as he gave Cassandra the novel, trying to hide the smile of genuine affection behind a sarcastic smirk.   
The people and their voices created a cyclone of colour and sound. Almost indistinguishable from one another until Mythal decided to stop and let a scene play out. In the time in between, Flora could hear the dreamers, crying out in fear, calling a lover’s name, proudly shouting for a parent to come see. Over and over, she heard one voice pleading. The same man. Again, and again, he begged for something to stop. A constant litany of “please” filled her head.   
Mythal resolved the scene and the torrent of voices, the swirling stopped and there was stillness. It was an uneasy space. A finely dressed woman, an elf, stood perusing the books on wooden shelves lining the room. The only natural light came in from small arrow slits in the wall. The cold wind whistled through them, bringing the damp and smell of salt. The sea must be nearby. Flora listened and heard the waves crash and slosh, there was no rattle of shale and shells as the waves were sucked back into the sea, so the building must be in the middle of the water. The sound of a heavy step in metal boots forced Flora to look behind her, where she saw a fully armoured woman pacing the room. The other woman pulled books off the shelves, briefly flicking through them, and replacing them. Obviously not finding what she needed. Every so often she consulted a notebook.   
The door to the room opened. A man’s voice, high and nasal, sent the small bones in Flora’s inner ear rattling. Her skin prickled and slithered over her tendons and bones. “You’re relieved,” he said to the woman in armor. And she left, walking through the door he held open.   
Flora saw the elven woman’s shoulders tense. She reached for her notebook, but he was faster, holding it out of her reach. She didn’t lunge for it. She gripped the heavy book she held closer to her chest and stepped back. The man flicked through the book, slowly, clearly enjoying the unease he was causing. He paused every so often, like he was reading a passage, to caress his sword. Flora realized he wasn’t using it as a symbol of his authority but a reminder to the woman that she must submit to him. He raised his hand to turn another page but then tore it from the notebook. He crumpled it and threw it out the arrow slit. The woman closed her eyes and turned her head. She cringed when she heard him forcefully separate the next page. This went on for several minutes, Flora shuddering along with the woman as each page was ripped. The woman tried to close her eyes tighter but Flora watched every movement.   
Eventually, the man decided he had enough. He walked towards the woman, hand on the hilt of his sword. He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look in his direction. Flora could see the give of the woman’s flesh around her mouth, his metal gauntlet making a painful and humiliating gesture much more dangerous.   
“You stray too far knife-ear,” he said, his voice an adenoidal whine. He almost threw the woman’s face back to her former position, leaving an angry red slice near her mouth, which beaded with blood. He walked back to the notebook, and wrenched a handful of pages out. Casting them out the window. He walked out of the room, swerving slightly in the woman’s direction, his boots striking ominously against the floor. She clutched the book tighter and turned her head further away.   
He left the door open. And waited, just outside. Watching for her collapse. The woman refused to give it to him. Maintaining her posture for several minutes. Until a look of boredom overtook him and he walked away. The door open, left that way, so any passer-by could witness the final moments of her degradation. The collapse. The crawling scramble for what was left of her notes. The realization that years of her research was destroyed. The entire reason she existed. The one thing she found to sustain her in the Circle. Gone. Tears streamed down her face as she turned what was left of the pages, rocking on the ground.   
Flora felt powerless. There was nothing she could do. Her hand reached towards the woman, uselessly. She came into contact with her shoulder but it sparked no reaction from the dreamer. She stroked her hair, softly, mostly to assuage her own feelings. There was something deeper than sympathy, or even empathy, welling up in her. It was more than concern for the woman. She wanted this woman to find meaning again, the value she found for herself in her research. She looked to Mythal, imploring her to explain.   
“This is not as far in the past as you would like me to say,” Mythal said, her shoulders shifting to take on yet another burden of injustice. Another wrong to be catalogued and righted when she could. “This is what life was like in the Circles, and this was considered a liberal one. It was worse in the others. So much worse.”   
“But these don’t exist anymore?” Flora could not entirely keep the anxious edge out of her tone. “You showed me people who were happy they were gone.”   
The woman finally realized she was bleeding on what was left of her notes and her touched hand briefly, almost absently to her face, smearing the blood and tears as she healed the physical wound.   
“No. They do not.”   
“Then why show me this?” the raw edge of Flora’s emotion caught in her throat, causing her to stumble across the words. “Why show me a mage suffering indignity? All the meaning she found in life after being forced here, gone in minutes because one person objected to what she was researching.”   
“She was attempting to understand Lyrium. It gives the templars, the man who did this, power. But it also can kill a mage or cause them to venture into the Fade, consciousness intact. However, understanding how Lyrium acts on a mage means understanding its power in templars. And that knowledge would have given her an advantage.”   
“I don’t care what she was researching. Just that she found meaning in it. She was devoted to it,” Flora said, more sharply than she intended. A few days ago, she was forced to leave all her research behind in a flash of blue light. However, it was the knowledge which gave her value, facts disconnected from meaning. All the knowledge was still with her. And so, she didn’t feel the removal even half so much. This was different. This was someone’s whole life bound up into a notebook. Their entire sense of self; their purpose. The pages ripped out were like flaying her skin and removing her organs. Each tattered edge in the notebook a reminder she would never be whole.   
Flora turned to look at the woman, still rocking on the floor, clutching her notebook. Tears still streaming down her face as more people gathered at the open door and whispered. “Does anyone come to help her?”  
“No.”   
“Why does she dream herself here?”   
“To remind herself the danger will always exist. To reinforce every free day is a gift.” Mythal shrugged. “Her emotions are a tangled bunch of thorns; it is like picking through Felanderis. It hurts to sort through them all. Like running your hands through shattered glass.”   
“Why bring me here?” Flora asked again.   
“What will exist will be far worse if nothing is done. Fen Harel will bring down the Veil. The demons will surge into the world, killing and tormenting. Mages will be rounded up. Left in prisons until people decide to end their demon problem by killing them all,” Mythal looked around the room, evaluating it, her gaze turned forlorn. “This will seem a palace and that templar a gift to this woman. Hindsight casting this in a more positive light.”  
“Can’t you just tell him what will happen? If you have seen it, can’t you talk him out of it?” Flora asked, she gestured towards the woman on the floor. “Doesn’t he see this? When he dreams himself here?”   
“He sees something different. He sees a woman who would have been powerful. He is reminded of the glory we once commanded,” Mythal shook her head, she let the scene dissolve into the frantic whirl of colour and sound. “He doesn’t see what the world has become in his absence. Only what he wants to bring back to it. Besides, I have not seen the future. Beyond now, I can only clearly see the past, all aspects of it, without the troubles of hindsight. My vision of the future is like yours, coloured by hope and clouded by doubt. Think carefully, daughter of Eve, you can shape the future as much as I.”   
Flora woke with a start in her bed, heart racing and the sting of salt at the corners of her eyes meant tears were too close to the surface. She touched the wall behind the head board, moving the heavy tapestry meant to keep the chill out, when this ruined castle existed in a realm with weather. The stones slept under her fingers, no trilling laughter or lightness within.


	4. Chapter 4

Flora wandered the ruined keep for hours. She found the confidence to lunge over small gaps in the floors. Explore stairways. She opened every door, sometimes finding only the luminous white waste and sometimes finding whole rooms. She trailed her fingers along the stone walls, hoping to find the trilling lightness once more, but it was absent. She knew it was Mythal removing herself, allowing Flora to make a decision without her influence but it hurt. Flora had come to rely on the laughter in the few days she had been here. It had become a constant, it made her feel safe. It was still the feeling she reached for when she wanted light or warmth in the world.   
Another voice trailed behind her today, a remnant from a night spent in the Fade. The man’s voice, pleading. She heard him begging, pain ringing through his voice, for something to stop every time she placed her foot on the floor. She heard him cry every time she climbed the steps. She wanted to cover her ears and yell for him to stop but the voice was inside her head.   
Flying buttresses rose up from the vine covered ground and curled into graceful arches over her head, ending abruptly; rough, jagged stone supporting by nothing. It was almost like a ruined temple, the kind you imagine as a child when all the mythologies and architectures of the world are jumbled with pictures of ideal locations. It should have been impossible. “Everything here should be impossible,” she said, over the pleading voice in her head. It was easier to block out the images of the woman, humiliated and crying on the floor, because her eyes weren’t closed. She was seeing other things. But the expanse, the floating rock she found herself on, were all silent. Not even a light breeze causing the leaves to shake. She could hear her heartbeat, her breathing, even the blood running through her veins, but those were not loud enough to drown out the voice.   
She walked the cobble stone path, which would have been directly under the ornate crowns of the arches; moss and fragrant herbs which grew between the stones. They released their scents when stepped on. It was a bit like creeping thyme, an astringent herbal smell which Flora found immediately calming. She looked ahead of her for the first time, there were no cracks in the ground in this space, and she was confronted by the contorted, blackened, red-limned corpse of Mythal. Placed in the center of the space, like a crucifix suspended in the apse of a cathedral, to be worshipped and adored.   
Flora walked forward, the closer she went, the more anguished the expression on Mythal’s face. Her mouth opened in a silent and eternal scream as she curled in on herself. The wings of her dragon form, bent and battered, still shielding her from what must have been horrifying pain. Flora knew, from somewhere, Mythal was still in agony. The corruption inside her body, the red cracks over her skin, were still affecting her physical form. Her separation from her soul causing more than an existential ache and manifested itself in the continual miserable song which spilled from her; yearning for her sundered essence. Flora fell to her knees, her left hand reaching, almost in supplication, and she joined her voice to the one in her head. “Please,” was her whisper, as agonized, as his. “Make it stop.”   
Flora bent her head under the force of the grief and despair.   
There was no knowing Mythal, no one could ever know a goddess; however, she had shown Flora affection. The trilling in the walls made her happy; made her feel able to take on the challenge of magic. The patience with which she waited for Flora to remember she could light her own way. And the protection she offered from the demons in the Fade, sending the dragon to sheild her while she slept. It was almost like a parent caring for a child. It should have felt wrong, considering she was brought here against her will. Flora’s lonely existence, based solely in the knowledge she gathered for herself, came starkly into focus. She hadn’t felt affection in so long, the genuine care a person might have for another, that Mythal’s easy care and graceful acceptance were now her undoing.   
She was offered a choice, and she could see now that if she really wanted to leave, Mythal would send her home. The goddess would never commit an injustice against someone else. She would argue and cajole, like any parent. She would attempt to get her children to realize what was best for them but she would never force them. The absence of her, today, was not a petulant removal of her presence but a break to allow Flora space in her own mind to come to terms with her decision.   
Flora curled over herself and wept, like the mage from last night.   
“She calls us all eventually,” she heard Solas say from behind her. Flora hurriedly swiped at the tears on her cheeks.   
“Fen Harel,” she said, it was more like an exhalation as she understood, finally, who he was.   
“Yes,” he said, his voice melancholy. He knelt beside her. “But also, Solas, to my friends.” He smiled a little.   
“Do gods have friends?” her voice was weak and strained.   
“You will meet mine some day soon. They are all that is good in this world,” he sighed.   
“Then why?” Flora asked.   
Solas sat silently looking up at Mythal. “Because I adore her.”   
“She doesn’t want this,” she said, swallowing the last of her tears. “She doesn’t want what you are going to do. It will destroy all that she loves.”   
“I know. But I will have her back.”  
“She loves you but she loves everything and everyone else just as much.”   
“Her capacity for affection is limitless,” Solas said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Flora’s ear. “It took her rather strong will acting in the Fade and my constant wishing, for lack of a better word, to bring you here. For you to find the way I cannot.”   
“But why me?”   
“I had no specific result in mind. No conscious desire. Just the ever present need to preserve my friends and restore the woman I adored. But you look like the Inquisitor. Uncannily so,” he frowned and shook his head, as if to loosen an unpleasant thought.   
“You said that before. Over apples,” Flora pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.   
“Yes. It feels longer than a few days ago,” he put a hand on her shoulder.   
“It would probably feel like less time for me if you weren’t always trying to literally shock me.”   
This startled a laugh out of Solas, it was dry and rusted.   
“She says the world will be worse for mages if you succeed.”   
“One of the many reasons why I shouldn’t,” he said, the small smile returning.   
“I don’t think I can be your nemesis.”   
“All of my friends are my enemies.”   
“What a lonely way to live.”   
“Yes.”   
“It is lonelier without her,” Flora said, knowing this to be a fact, now, for both of them.   
“Yes,” he said. Flora watched him. His manner so like Mythal’s in that moment, the slight softening around the eyes and mouth, the relaxation of stature. The diminishment of burden. “I miss her so.”   
“There must be a way,” Flora said, turning her head to face him, her tear rimmed eyes imploring him to think of something.   
“Not that she or I have been able to find.”   
“I don’t know that I can carry the burden for you.”   
“It seems a lot to ask.”   
“It is.”   
“You will have to decide soon,” Solas said. “We all must decide soon.”   
“I don’t know how,” Flora hugged her knees closer and rested her chin on them. She looked up to Mythal. “I want the lightness in the stones back. I want her back.”   
“I can promise you, if you make the decision she wants, you will have her,” Solas said, turning his eyes to the dried and disfigured woman in front of them.   
“Can gods make promises for another?”   
“No,” he said. “You learn, perhaps, too quickly. But I know she would not abandon you. And the fortress which houses the Inquisition, high in the mountains, was the place she was happiest in all the world. The stones sing there for anyone who can listen.”   
Solas started to pull himself up but Flora reached out for his arm. “Please can’t we sit here for a moment longer?” He nodded and settled himself back into the fragrant creeping herbs and soft moss. Silence reigned once more, even the man’s voice in Flora’s head seemed to be swallowed by the stillness. 

Mythal did not meet her but she was not alone. A dragon circled lazily overhead. Green fire flashed in Flora’s hand and her other stung with the sparks kept just under the surface of her skin, her hand glowing a wicked and electric purple. She was proud of herself, briefly.   
The man’s voice called out again and Flora fell immediately somber. Her self-appointed task this night was to find the man pleading in the darkness. She followed the first scared whisper. The first agonized plea. Stepping carefully. The green fire spilling from her hand cast a steady glow around her but the ground was uneven and her slightest desire could be made real here. She was careful not to imagine but only see. The dragon followed, changing loops for figure eights, lengthening its reach to clear her path.   
Her steps seemed to go faster here, when she had a purpose, the world whizzed by in a smear of sickly green, browns, and greys. Every so often a claw would slash at her, slicing through the paint slick which surrounded her. Things, empty black spaces which would resolve themselves into something terrifying for a moment and then dissolve into another fear, skittered across her path and then tried to follow but she was moving too quickly for them to catch up. And still the man’s voice pleaded. Getting louder now as she drew closer.   
And soon, she found herself in a room made of stone. There was a bed and a dresser, wooden floors, and little else but a gaping hole in the ceiling. The wind and snow swirled in through the gap. She stepped into the sunlight which filled the space. There was a young man sitting near the ladder to the loft, his legs dangling over the edge, looking down into the room. He was wearing a wide brimmed hat. At the rustle of her nightgown, he turned to look at her, but it was a bit like watching a long exposure picture happen in real time; his head, a ghostly outline, was still turned forward watching the dream and the same face turned to her, seemingly solid. He held a finger to his lips, in a signal to be quiet. She sat down beside him, careful to keep her feet away from edge and tucked her nightgown and robe around her feet. His faces became one again, but it was more that he was holding a cut-out up to a tracing, there was always a faint luminous line which didn’t shift and move the same way he did.   
“You can hear me?” she whispered to the young man.   
He nodded, the surreal movement highlighting the ghostly outline again. And pointed to the scene below.   
The man’s voice had quieted to a whisper. He was bent over his desk, the sunlight picking up the red and gold highlights in his curly hair and caught at the silk and velvet lamé and surcoat he wore over his plate armor. The fur on his pauldrons blew slightly in what must have been a cold breeze. He shivered from obvious pain and the cold. A latched wooden box was open on the desk in front of him. “Please make it stop,” he said.  
Flora could hear the leather of his gloves stretch as he made a fist, gauging the pain in his joints. The fingers in his hand moved slowly, but it wasn’t on purpose. She recognized the movement; it was the same when her hands were cold, reluctant joints and no blood flow. His eyes were shut tight and his lips were pressed together. He flattened his hand on the desk again and looked at the box. He shut his eyes once more, against temptation this time.   
“Lyrium,” the young man said, it was barely breathed in the space between them he spoke so softly.   
“Templar,” she whispered back.   
“He wants to help too much but he needs it more,” the young man said, shaking his head.   
She heard the metal of the man’s vambrace slide and scrape at the hinge as he tensed his arm. It preceded his bellow of frustration by a fraction of a second. He swiped the box from the heavy desk and flung it. It shattered on the door frame as a woman walked in. She was back lit, the sunlight streaming behind, casting her face in shadow. Her hand flashed green.  
“Well, at least you weren’t aiming for me,” she said. Her voice sounded exactly like Flora’s when she was recorded and played back. Flora’s shoulders tensed and she held her breath. The other woman turned her head, and the light from the room’s windows caught her in profile. The shape of the cheeks, the turn of the lip, the line of the nose, and the slope of her eyebrow were all the same and as familiar to Flora as her own reflection because it was. “The Inquisitor,” she exhaled.   
“Looks like you but feels different. Similar but not the same,” the young man said helpfully. “You feel like the moon wrapped in the sky. Like meadowsweet and elderflower after a warm rain. The green likes you.”   
Flora’s eyes widened slightly, trying to determine the meaning of the rather odd poem she had just heard. Also, slightly astounded someone could rhapsodize so sweetly about her when they did not know her.   
“I know you,” the young man said. She recognized his voice from the flash of light. “It will hurt when he does it,” he said again. Flora felt her eyes widen and she started to ask a dozen questions. Shaking his head, the ghostly outline again visible. He pointed for her to watch the scene below, almost like it was an important plot point in a movie.   
“They tortured me. How can you even be the same person after that,” the man said, anguished and angry all at once.   
Flora’s doppelganger stayed silent, watching him pace between his desk and the bookcase, the shadows cast by the lead cames lengthening like prison bars, until he came to the bookshelf where the full light of the sun shone on him through the door. It was his life leashed to lyrium and his life in the Inquisition, light and free.   
“Take it,” the Inquisitor said. “You aren’t your best without it.” It was said sweetly but there was a malicious edge to the cadence of the words.   
Flora knew he would take it if he were ordered too. He had been too conditioned to take orders from religious superiors, despite his own position of power, which was evident in this space. The badges of his office surrounded him, he wore them with pride and kept them to remind him people depended on him. Flora knew from experience, she could take no action, but it didn’t prevent her from wishing she could. All she could do was watch his pain, knowing this was a dream and a memory. Maybe even a nightmare, given what the Inquisitor was suggesting.   
“She wants everyone to burn and scratch and hurt like she does. She wants them to have holes in them like she does in her hand,” the young man beside her said.   
“Did you dream yourself here?” Flora asked, wondering how he could interpret the feelings of the dreamers the way Mythal could. Asking questions distracted her from her inability to help, which was forming into an ache in her heart.   
“I live here,” he said.   
Flora turned her head to point at the tower, intending to ask whether he lived in the Fade or in the tower. Both begged other questions and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to answers to any of them right now.   
“I’ll have the Requisitions Officer deliver you a new kit. I will make it easy for you,” the Inquisitor said, the malignant edge to her words sparked brighter, like a knife edge on the sharpening wheel.   
The man crossed back to the chair, supporting himself on the desk as he went. His steps slowed by physical pain and emotional failure. As he sat, the shadows from the window extended over him, barring him in as the Inquisitor turned to leave.   
“A prison of his own making,” Flora turned to the young man but he wasn’t there any longer.   
The soft scuffle of leather boots on stone could be heard just outside the door. It sounded like two people racing up the stairs. One stumbled in after the other. She recognized the shape of Solas’ head and ears. The other man, she knew from her walk with Mythal, the one with the mustache and the intimidating lover.   
“Commander, please,” the other man said, catching himself against the door frame rather than pitching forward into the room.   
“You don’t have to do this my friend,” Solas said.   
“Think about what you want for once,” the man with the mustache said, striding into the room.   
The Commander pushed himself up from the chair and leaned on the desk, supporting his whole weight on his arms before turning to take a step forward, his knees giving out slightly. He flexed his right hand in his glove, the leather stretched over his knuckles, again testing the flex and the give of the pain. “I never meant for this to interfere,” he said, sadness and failure dominating his tone.   
“It isn’t interfering,” Solas said, taking a step further into the room, catching the other man’s eye, both bracing to lunge forward should the Commander fall.   
“I want no part of that life. I cannot be a part of it any longer. I need to break the final chain but she won’t let me,” the Commander whispered, pulling himself up straighter and taking a step away from the desk.   
“Then don’t give them control back. Don’t put on the leash and collar again. Please. It isn’t what you want. She doesn’t even want that. She is striking out at you, like she has done to all of us,” Solas said, his voice pitched calmly but Flora could hear the concern behind the words.   
“Always hitting where it hurts the most,” the other man said, walking to the desk.   
“I won’t give less than I gave the Chantry,” the Commander said.   
“The Chantry demanded too much of you and then trapped you in the noose,” the man with the mustache said. “This cause is much greater. Prove a templar can leave and can break free. Other templars will need that when this is all over.”   
“The memories; the nightmares, they are worse without the lyrium.”   
Solas nodded his head. “Have you been sleeping?” he asked, with the calm professional manner Flora had come to associate almost solely with modern doctors ensuring their patients achieved work life balance, ate the right amount of fruit, and slept for a full eight hours.   
The Commander shook his head. “He never sleeps. They are always there. Her and her,” the young man said, sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of the loft once more. “Now is not the right time for you.” He put his fingers to her forehead and Flora woke in her own bed, staring at the tester.   
There was no lingering sleep to rub from her eyes, just like the other mornings. She rolled over, pulling the heavy blankets with her. She swung her feet to the floor and opened the curtains, letting the thin, cool light into the space. She looked out the window for a moment, mostly to assure herself nothing had changed about the white waste. When she turned to the table, there were new books, which Sandal must have brought while she dreamed. She crossed to the table. The tips of her fingers stroking the binding before she read the titles. The Botanical Compendium by Ines Arancia. A book about plants. She groped for a chair, opening the cover of the book at the same time. A note was tucked inside.   
“My friend, a visitor in the night told me you might need these,” she read aloud. The second book was Herbology in Thedas by Master Ilian Gravire and a third book, The Wilds of Thedas by Stephen d’Eroin. The bindings were new. The leather embossed in gold. A new colour caught her eye, new books on top of her notebook and the other books on magic she was studying. They were green and blue cloth stretched over wood to make covers, a little frayed at the corners and worn into softness at the edges. A note accompanied these too. “Cole said you needed to learn about the green things in the world. That it would help. As I have learned not to ignore Cole’s simpler statements, I found two books on botany my people wrote. I hope they may indeed prove useful to you. Solas,” Flora read aloud. “Well, at least I know his name if I ever encounter him in the Fade again.” She shook her head and opened the top book, the blue one, it was filled with illustrations of plants, the kind Flora had only seen in museums. The ones traced in gold with crushed gems and glue in the ink. They were luminous. She was afraid to touch them, to even turn the page lest she disturb any fragile spots, causing the picture to flake away.   
Mythal’s voice whispered from the stones, “they aren’t that fragile,” the trilling laughter once again. Some of the lightness returned.


	5. Chapter 5

Flora decided to set out on an expedition; to find and identify the plants which still grew here in the vast white waste. She thought about starting in the temple, where Mythal was suspended in constant sorrow, but realized she could not bear the despair. Not today. The memory of the dreamer was a heavy enough burden. She did not want to think about why she heard him, through all the dreamers crying out in the night with nightmares and horrible memories.   
She held her book in one hand, splayed open in her palm, tracing her fingers along the stone wall again to hear the soft trilling laughter. It made her smile, a slight and soft turn at the corner. She could never remember feeling that gentle settled happiness. There always seemed to be some turmoil in life which prevented it. Which is why plants were such an attractive study option. However, the downside of plants is they provided no affection or interaction.   
The unstable nature of her childhood, always moving to her parents’ next assignment, always needing to start over again at a new school meant she sought acceptance through helping people. Homework help for classmates in a desperate bid to be accepted into their long-formed social groups. Doing the dishes and making dinner as a way to pull a modicum of affection out of distant and career driven parents. Plants offered her a way to do that without having the inevitable disappointment of interacting with people; of caring for them but feeling discarded when they no longer needed her for calculus or as a promotion prop.   
The trilling in the walls softened and Flora pressed her free hand fully against the wall. Trying to capture and absorb more of the sound. She kept the flat of her hand on the wall as she walked through the hallways, removing it only to turn the pages in the book she held. Her excitement for new discovery soon overrode the need for comfort. And the laughter returned as she grazed her finger tips along the wall.   
She hopped over cracks in the floor which allowed luminescence to seep in through some of the darkened spaces, with a level of confidence and glee she did not feel a few days ago. She wanted to find a patch of green, filled with plants.   
Soon, the cracked corridors opened to what a romantic author might call a grotto. There were trees surrounding it, one even looked like a willow, its graceful branches flowing over the side of the floating rock and trailing into the white expanse below. She brushed it as she passed, just to hear the leaves rustle and whisper against each other. She realized she missed the sound of leaves in the breeze. And so, she did it again, for the joy of hearing it a second time. There were stone pillars dotted around, making Flora wonder if the elves also enjoyed spurious ruins, like the eighteenth-century garden designers, or if this were part of the floating ruin. Vines grew up and around them. Clinging tightly to the rock. Large blue bell-shaped flowers sprung up from the ground. “Crystal grace,” Flora said. “I guess Arancia is good for something. But what do you do?” she asked the plant.   
A blue flower with a fiery red centre on spikes grew out of the ground all around. They were stunning. “Embrium,” Flora said. Delicately stroking her index finger along the waxy petals.   
“Used for infections of the lungs. Although, it is mostly templars who harvest it now,” Solas said. “Healers only use it as a last resort; the distillations from it are often volatile.”   
“This book is not particularly helpful with that sort of information,” Flora said, raising the book in her hand slightly.   
“I am afraid none are. For the moment, this is the height of the study of plants here. The Chantry didn’t allow much change in scholarship for a very long time.”   
“And now?”   
“Leliana has spent the last nine years quelling the violent uprisings her changes in the Chantry caused. Devout men and women rebelling because they are unwilling to give up the advantage of being Andraste’s chosen people. She has her hands full fending off assassins and making more inclusive religious reforms. Scholarship has gone largely unsupervised which also means unpublished.”   
“Neglected,” she said simply, rubbing the leaves of the vine clinging to the pillars between her fingers.   
“Not purposefully so,” he said. Flora realized he was defending a friend. “People have had other problems over the last decade. In fact, the last two decades just forced more hardship on all the people of Thedas.”   
“And you will make it worse,” she said, closing the book in her hands and shaking her head.   
“Then build me something I do not wish to destroy. Find another way. I must bring her back. I have to do this,” he shut his own eyes. Flora saw the pain start in his forehead, the little creases between his eyebrows and then the tightness around his eyes. He pressed his lips together and almost seemed to fold in on himself.   
She thought of the dreamer last night. “You helped him with the lyrium addiction. You kept him alive to fight for this world. You are his friend.”   
“All of my friends are my enemies,” Solas’ smile was pained and bitter at the reminder. Flora wasn’t sure if he wanted her to remember the incontrovertible truth or himself. He turned and left her there, amidst all the green.   
Flora sank on to the grass, running her fingers through it. She pressed her hand into the dirt, feeling the sponginess of the root network just below the soil. “I suppose the Victorians were right, with great love comes great sacrifice,” she said to herself. She took her hand from the ground to open her book and the scent of anise filled the air. She looked down to find the space beside her occupied with stalks of dark purple hyssop. The flower the Victorians associated with sacrifice and love. Her eyes widened in realization.   
Mythal had the power to make and unmake the world. Her magic ancient and powerful. Solas, a god in his own right, was able to control and contort this space. To move the rocks, open the mirrors, and create comforts. She pressed her hand against the ground again, tiny, lacy, and fragile pink flowers sprung up between her fingers, their slender stalks tougher than they looked. It would seem she commanded some of those ancient magics. At least, she had the ability to make plants grow. It was intuitive and she did not need to learn to control it. It simply existed within her. 

She found Cole in the Fade that night, perched on a rock, his head bent and the wide brim of his hat obscuring most of his face. “Is this where you live?” Flora asked.   
“I live at home,” he said.   
It would appear last evening was not an anomaly. He was going to be as cryptic today as he was yesterday.   
“Are you here to make sure I see something specific?”   
“She said you needed to see now,” he looked up at her then and she saw the effort it was to remember the precise message. To say something clearly rather than abstractly.   
“I am in your hands.”   
“You are too large to be in my hands,” he said with confusion tugging his lips downward.   
Flora shrugged her shoulders. Cole took her left hand and turned it face up in his own. She realized she should have felt uncomfortable but there was something about him, despite his enigmatic nature, which set her immediately and deeply at ease. He stroked her palm, his skin cool against hers. “It looks different now than it does later,” he said.   
She drew her hand back, sometimes his mysterious statements bordered on alarming. As an excuse for her action, she summoned the fire to that hand, fully realizing he could see into her mind, as he so ably demonstrated last evening. The fire sparked and sputtered in her hand, a happy blaze to light the way, to keep the demons at bay.   
“Green closes the world over. Makes everything healthy and happy again. The green reminds him,” Cole said, his head tilted to the left slightly, looking at the crackling flame in her palm.   
‘I think there might be an educational requirement to speak to you. I feel like having any meaningful conversation with you would require me to have a master’s in literature with specific focus on symbolism in poetry,” Flora said, her voice drier than she intended. She gestured him forward.   
“But I am not poetry.”   
“No. But you speak in it. And in riddles.”   
Cole lightly cupped her elbow to bring her forward with him. And then they stepped forward. It seemed to Flora that they fell, like when you think a stair will be there and it isn’t, that step takes longer until you stumble. She expected her foot to come into contact with the ground only it wasn’t there any longer.   
When Flora stumbled forward, she was in an opulent office. A fire burning cheerily in the grate, a table with food and wine placed before it. The grapes looked succulent and the pewter wine jug had condensation on it, like someone had brought cold white wine from deep underground. The space while large and airy was not bright. She could see sunlight and blue sky through the windows high on the wall but the room itself was lit by the fire and candles. Giving the impression it was later in the day than it actually might be.   
A finely dressed dwarf strode into the room. “Well, he would be finely dressed if his shirt weren’t so unreasonably open,” Flora thought to herself.   
Two people followed him into the room. One person in a hood, his left arm bare, carrying a raven in cage, the other a young woman with a tablet filled with papers and a burning candle in a holder, she wore so many ruffles. She spoke first.   
“The Inquisition has sent a request, it seems Fen Harel’s cult is exploring the islands between here and the Storm Coast. They ask that you and the Arl work together to find whatever they are searching for first. The Inquisition will obviously supply soldiers and scouts,” she started, making a tick mark on her papers.   
“I can see that. I bet Curly is just thrilled to be acting in both roles. But at least it will get him out of Orlais for a time. Looks like a visit is in order,” the dwarf said, gesturing to the hooded man with the raven.   
“Then there is the matter of your publishers. They want to discontinue Swords and Shields, it just isn’t selling,” she ticked another item. This was the Varric Tethras, the person whose books she spent so much time reading, to clear her head from the complicated study of magics.   
“I don’t write that for the sales. I write it for the Lady Seeker. Tell them the next in the series will be published on schedule,” he said, smiling slightly.   
The young dark-haired woman pursed her lips. “I shall write to them today,” she said, noting it down. “Strongly worded?”   
“I leave that to you, Ruffles Junior.”   
“I really wish you would come up with something better than that,” her accent shifted between something vaguely French and somewhat Spanish.   
Varric shrugged his shoulders. “Something will come to me eventually.” He looked at her. His eyes squinting. “But right now, you remind me so much of Ruffles.”   
She ticked another item off her list. “Clearly a standing agenda item,” Flora said, ostensibly to Cole, but given his rather riddled responses, mostly for her own benefit.   
Ruffles Junior. Flora found herself wishing she knew her actual name. “Yvette,” Cole supplied. “She wanted pictures but her sister needed bridges.”   
Yvette went down the list, ticking off items as she went. Small matters of Varric’s estate and finances were dealt with, a sizeable donation to the Templar Sanctuary was discussed, various matters to do with running the city like drainage problems, knocking down the alienage tenements, relocating families to proper housing, dismantling The Gallows. Most of the terms were unfamiliar to Flora. She assumed the alienage was bad. “The elves live there,” Cole answered her unasked question.   
Flora spared some admiration for a man who was ending capital punishment in a medieval society.   
“No. They still kill. It was for the mages.” Cole touched her forehead and images filled her mind. Hulking statues of naked men covering their faces in anguish, chained together, marking the entry to the city’s harbour. The gleaming lights of the city on one side of a bridge, and across the channel, the burnt-out ruin of what was once a massive keep. Flora could see hundreds of ghostly people, chained together, being whipped over a bridge. Overlaid on that image, and clearer, more recent, were child mages being pulled screaming into the tower. Begging for parents who no longer wanted them. Older mages, hands tied, walking in rags over the bridge, finally routed from their hiding places.   
“The Circle,” Flora said, her breathing speeding up at the images.   
Varric’s voice penetrated the panic which was starting to build in her. She connected with one small fact; he was pulling it down. It soon wouldn’t exist. The stone repurposed and used to build better houses for families elsewhere in the city. “Well, I suspect this will take a few weeks. You’ll be fine, Ruffles Junior. Send the raven if anything really awful happens. Red is around if you need help. Oh, and I need that engineering assessment on taking the harbour statues down,” Varric left, walking backwards through the massive open doors. Flora thought that if he knew what finger guns were, he would have used them as a parting gesture.   
“Why does he dream about his day?” Flora asked.  
“Seeking. Finding. He likes to remember. She bites and he laughs,” Cole said, shrugging.   
“I am going to make a bunch of assumptions based on that comment and they are probably wrong,” Flora said.   
Cole took her elbow again, and she lifted her foot. It wasn’t as bad this time. She expected the fall and didn’t stumble when they landed. People dressed for cold weather were walking down a sunny arcade, the garden to the left of them a riot of colour, Flora could see meadowsweet, feverfew, and what she now recognized as elfroot growing in massive stone containers. She saw the pink firework bursts of valerian through the garden, they provided cheerful colour but their roots were once used to treat anxiety and sleeplessness. It was an apothecary’s garden.   
There was a young woman harvesting spindleweed from the pools around the central fountain, where it grew in abundance. “This is a hospice. People come here to die.” She looked at Cole for confirmation. He was busy examining the Commander, he was different now, heavier lines around his mouth and eyes etched in by worry, age, and pain. He was still wearing red and gold, but without the armor. He was softer but not relaxed. “Please tell me he isn’t a patient,” she said, it almost sounded like she was bargaining.   
“Burdened and strengthened by it. This sustains but not enough,” Cole said, looking at her fully.   
A man with a cane shuffled down the hallway behind the Commander. He reached out a hand, unconsciously, to help the man forward. To lend his strength to bolster the failing reserves of the other, even if it was only for a second or two, so he could sit beside the fountain that much sooner.   
“This is his? Does he live here?” Flora asked.   
“No, armor feels like home.”   
“I suspect I am not going to get any helpful information from you. Plain speaking just isn’t something you do well.”   
He waved to a tree. “You need to say hello. She doesn’t understand, yet.” He said to the weeping willow.   
Flora was rather shocked to see the willow tree in one corner of the garden wave some of its branches at her. A few of the Valerian stalks bent their heads as well.   
“What are they?”   
“Compassion and Hope,” Cole said, delicately lifting one of the valerian blossoms, from which extended a ghostly woman’s hand, fine fingered and translucent. “They like the flowers. They try to help.”   
She saw the spirit of a child, in a full skirt, twirl in the branches of the willow tree. Laughing and spinning and a breeze Flora couldn’t feel lifted the leaves.   
“He is helping other templars?” She asked.   
“He wants them free, like he is,” the child in the tree answered.   
“An end to pain. Keeping their memories,” the valerian flowers chorused bending in the Commander’s direction as he passed.   
Mythal had shown her the spirits which always seemed to drift at the edges of the dreams. “Demons and spirits all sustain themselves with the dreamers,” Cole said, in a surprisingly forthright statement. “It is how they understand the other side of the Veil. How they make the world enticing to the people who dream themselves here.”   
A large hound nudged at the Commander’s hand and he reached out to scratch between its ears, absently and affectionately. The hound trotted alongside as he moved to enter the building, sometimes brushing against his legs.   
Cole turned to follow the Commander; Flora took one last look at the garden and went indoors. They strode down another arcade. The whole space was filled with light. Pushing through a door, they entered an office. The Commander crossed to his desk, and started shuffling papers into cases. He picked up one letter.   
“I really wish he would call me something different,” he said, looking at the creased parchment. “Surely, something better has occurred to him in all the time he has known me.” He shook his head slightly, but there was a small smile. “It will be good to see him again, nonetheless.”   
Flora circled behind him, to see the letter, it was from Varric, arranging to meet in Amaranthine.   
The Commander looked at a raven sitting caged in a corner, “To Work?” he said, and the raven hopped happily around the base of his cage. The dog lifted his head barked. This was clearly a question asked frequently within these walls.   
Cole took her elbow once more and turned them again. The fall was longer this time. And she jolted from sleep in her own bed. The same sensation as when her heart rate dropped too low in sleep too quickly and her brain jerked her awake to ensure she was still living.   
Flora was coming to realize there were so many ways to navigate through the malleable landscape of the Fade. For each person, or maybe purpose, it was different. Mythal navigated by the voices and the injustices committed against the peoples she loved, finding the small hurts. Cole fell into things, loneliness calling to him. Varric and the Commander were isolated by loss and responsibility, having the weight of command on their shoulders. Legions under them and yet they were all alone. Working, desperately, to establish something better than what came before for everyone who lived here; to remake the world through determination and kindness. Flora wondered, when the time came, how she would travel through the Fade on her own, what would call out to her in the desolate landscape of spirits, dreamers, demons, and nightmares.   
Her nights were filled with the memories of broken lonely people still trying their hardest for their world. Flora had kept herself apart. Alone. Untouched and untouchable. She did not act, even in the little things. She was complacent and apathetic, she realized now. Misanthropic and miserable.   
“What do I want?” Flora asked.


	6. Chapter 6

Mythal had stripped all the artifice around her thoughts and feelings about home. If she were very honest with herself, and Flora knew she must be; she knew she didn’t really care about her world. She never tried to fix it. Never tried to do anything to it or within it. Her inaction bothered her. “Well, it isn’t as if I have the power to fix anything there,” she said aloud.   
She traced her fingers along the walls as she walked, looking for traces of Mythal in the stones. Her bare feet connected to and grounded in massive stone slabs which formed the floor of the ruin. She was still today but her presence not completely gone, just wrapped up within herself. Contemplative rather than silent. The Commander’s voice was hardly quiet, his pleas following her everywhere. She was learning to live with his sonorous voice pleading for the pain to stop, for the torture to end.   
These cracked hallways and the expanse beyond were now familiar to Flora. Not home, but not disorienting. “But home isn’t home either,” she said, sighing lightly. “It is just the place where I live.”   
She turned a corner and walked unconsciously up a step. She called rocks floating around her to make the rest of the stair case without registering what she was doing. She moulded them as she tried to shape her thoughts.   
“Can here be home? Will I be different here? Can I bear the burden of their expectations? What happens if I fail?” These questions all boiled down to one simple question in her mind: will I be good enough. And the truth was, Flora avoided this question constantly, preferring not to try. Closing herself off from people and experiences, which meant she and they never suffered disappointment.   
“Are a few affectionate actions and compassion for some people enough to abandon everything I know?” She asked herself, climbing the stairs as they formed under her feet.   
She felt nothing for home. Not even for the people there she knew well. They might be worried. However, she would be forgotten soon enough. A small footnote buried in the Google search results about unsolved missing persons cases. “That doesn’t sound any different than actually being there. I am just a minor researcher at a lesser university with few friends and a non-existent relationship with my parents. My articles are never ground breaking, they just validate other research. I am nearly middle-aged. My whole life is just lost in the search results.”   
She felt the grass bend against her feet, cool and soft. And Mythal’s sorrowful song drew her forward into the temple once more. Her ruined remains and sorrowful notes the sole points of Flora’s focus. She stopped before her. And realizing she only needed the answer to one question.   
“Why me?” she whispered. “It can’t only be that I look like her. Surely, there are many people in the multiverse who look like the two of us.”   
Mythal could not answer her here, nothing came from her except the sorrowful song, a constant melancholy call. Flora was genuinely exhausted. Days of practicing magic and attempting to understand the burden she was asked to take on; nights spent in long study, avoiding death by demon, and wading through the quagmire of dreamers’ emotions. She felt like she was thrashing in quicksand, sinking faster in her panic and questioning.   
She sat on the ground, cushioned by the fragrant creeping thyme and plush mosses. She ran her hand through the tiny leaves, releasing more of the oils. The scent surrounded her. She looked up at Mythal. She could gaze upon her without sorrow; knowing her better. Some of the shock had worn off and anger fizzled away.   
She was not drained of emotion. She was overflowing with it. It was different. It was affection and loss. It was compassion and empathy. It was drive and pride. She knew, deep in her heart, she would have found the mage dreamer in the circle on her own, just as she had found the Commander, when all their sense of purpose and meaning was taken from them. She connected to them, there, in that moment because she lacked purpose in her own life. Her path through the fade wasn’t about cataloguing loss and loneliness or hurts and injustices, but finding ways to give people meaning.   
And, Flora realized, that was why Mythal wanted her. Out of everyone who ever existed who looked like her in the multiverse, she was the one who wanted to ensure people mattered, that their contributions meant something at the end of it all. That she would mean something. That she would do more.   
Flora knew she already made a decision. Had made it days ago, in fact, it just took her so long to accept it. She stood and moved forward. Placing her hands on the ground, Prophet’s Laurel sprang up under Mythal and around Flora’s hands. The symbol of Andraste’s sacrifice, thrown in her path as she was led to her pyre. The berries, her blood spilled on the waxy green sword shaped leaves. However, Flora knew the roots were Mythal’s, largely forgotten but vitally important to the survival of all.   
She would stay. She would help. She would fight. 

Solas found her later, at her fire, taking notes from one of the botany books he gifted her. Looking at her, he walked into her room and stood by the table.   
“I have made my decision,” she said, opening the conversation she knew he wished to have.   
“I know.”   
Silence rose up between the two of them. It was comfortable but still assessing. They knew, in a few short days, Flora would be pitted against him, by his own desire and intention. There would be few friendly exchanges, and then, only when they met in the Fade by his desire. He smiled at her, and she would swear there was almost a fondness behind it. They shared something, deep and abiding, that few would understand or experience.   
Solas looked at the books she was working from, the jewel toned illustrations sparkling in the firelight. “They were a gift. They are yours. You needn’t worry about notes,” he said, gently closing the book and tapping its cover. “I have others for you as well. The last gifts from a good friend.”   
“Not the last,” she said. “If I solve this, you can give me others. I will take illuminated manuscripts, odd artifacts, plants of any sort,” she extended her fingers as if counting off the presents she expected. It surprised another laugh from him, this one sounding more used than the last.   
“I will send Sandal with you. It is time he went home,” he said. “There are people who worry for him. I would regard it as a favour if you took him back to his father.”   
“One cannot refuse a god a favour. The prophet will see it done,” her tone dry and smile more wry than she intended. “I never thought of myself as religious before. I did not have faith at home and, apparently, I do not need it here.” Her thoughts were a tumbling mess, at some points cynical and sarcastic, at others philosophical.   
“Unnecessary when you know gods exist.”   
“How much do I tell them?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.   
He shrugged and sat down at the table with her, pouring them each a glass of wine from the pitcher on the table “I am not sure myself. The details of this are as much a mystery to me as you.”   
Flora sipped from the glass, the wine was dark red this time, it tasted of berries and chocolate. She had expected the silence which drifted between them to be strained, given their new positions. It was companionable. Pleasant, even.   
“What do I need to know?” she asked.   
“I would rather let others tell you. My version of events is biased and will not be helpful to you. Their version is the one you need to understand.”   
She sipped from her wine again. “What made the Inquisitor’s hand glow?”   
“A ritual gone wrong. An artifact misused,” he said, turning the glass so the wine within caught the light.   
“Cole says it will hurt.”  
“Undoubtedly. But at least this one will be stable. It will not kill you.”   
“Was that a worry for the last one?” She unconsciously curled her left hand inwards.   
“Yes. To let her live, I needed to remove her arm.”   
“But she lives?”   
“Yes.”   
“Will you have to remove my arm?” she asked, looking into her wine glass, avoiding his searching gaze.   
“No. This will be my work. Not a blighted magister with delusions of godhood playing with magics he could not understand.” He spat the words out. They were bitter. This was as close as she came to seeing him angry. She had seen him desperate, impassioned, impatient. But never angry. “I cannot say the pain will leave you once it happens though. And you will bear it forever.” He turned sympathetic and apologetic in an instant.   
“Why her?”   
“She fell from the Fade. And when she landed, it was with the mark on her hand. People declared her Andraste’s Herald; a sign the Maker had never abandoned them.”   
“She was the furthest thing from what Mythal would have wanted as her voice in the world,” she said, placing her glass on the table.   
“She was resentful and bitter. She was unsuited to the task and knew it. She hated us all.”   
“Cole said she wanted people to have holes in them?”   
“She wanted people broken and battered. It masked her own failures. It made her feel powerful in a situation where we all powerless.”   
“And still you let her lead?”   
“She had the mark.” The answer was simple. “At the end of it all, the Inquisition, built despite her, became too politically unwieldly. Countries were afraid when an overarching military power outnumbered their own soldiers; when soldiers had a choice of allegiance. Ferelden and Orlais wanted to dismantle the Inquisition. The Inquisitor was their loudest supporter. It would have damaged so many people and that appealed to her,” He looked like he had swallowed something bitter.   
“Then what?” her voice was quiet and soft, needing him to finish the story but unwilling to distract him.   
“She ran away. With Blackwall. A traitor and a murderer. He was trying to be better, for all of us, for a time, but his freedom made him selfish. He stood behind her, supporting her desire to ruin everyone, and convinced her to run off with him, hiding themselves away. The Inquisition does not need her but the people need a figure head. A sign their gods have not forgotten them in all the turmoil and strife. That the sacrifice they continually make is worth it in the end.” He slid his glass onto the table. “On her best day, she was spoiled and selfish. On her worst days, she was vindictive and vengeful.”   
“I have seen one of those days,” she said, her voice quieting further, almost a whisper. “She seemed almost happy to be telling someone to do something self-destructive; knowing he would do it because she said.”   
“That was an awful day,” he shook his head, to clear the memory. “I could have lost a friend because of a spiteful child with no genuine feeling for any other person. He would have sunk into the comforting song of Lyrium and without the templar order to supply it to him, he would have resorted to begging on the streets. That is a fate I would not wish upon anyone and if I can prevent it for a friend… I will,” he trailed off then. He abandoned his usual enigmatic statements in favour of plain speaking and Flora thought he felt he said too much.   
He rose from the chair, placing a hand on Flora’s shoulder as he passed. The pressure of his grip was light. It was meant to reassure and comfort. And then, he left. Flora felt the weight of expectation settle around her. It was such a large task. The voice of a god. Saving Solas from himself. Restoring Mythal. Giving people purpose and meaning. Being a better person than her doppelganger. “Not that the last bit is hard,” she said. “Apparently, all I need to do is just approach people with basic decency and I will have already succeeded in that. But it is one more thing. On a short and heavy list.”   
She sat and looked at the firelight catching at the wine in the glass, it looked almost opaque, the green flames unable to highlight any of the shades. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair. “What did I just let myself in for?” she asked the empty room.   
Cole whispered across the last bit of her consciousness. “It will hurt when he does it,” he said. Flora was unsure if he meant the hole in her hand, the Inquisitor’s mark, or handing her off to someone else, cutting her off from Mythal and him. 

The orb sparked and flashed. It emitted green light from deep fissures. It pulsed and hummed. It cracked and thundered. Flora decided it was a bit like watching a small, contained electrical storm held aloft in Solas’ hand. He stepped forward with it and she pushed herself further back into her seat, knowing what it would cause.   
She would like to say Solas looked maniacal just before inflicting the pain, to cast him in the role of villain. He looked apologetic. She thought she say pity flash in his eyes.   
He crossed the space between them slowly. Her heart started to beat faster and her muscles tensed. She held out her left hand to him, warily and shakily. She didn’t want this anymore than he wanted to do it. He dropped the orb in her hand and she closed her fingers around it. Pain. Burning, wretched torment. She closed her fingers tighter against it and flexed her wrist. Searing, sorrowful agony pulsed through her hand, over her wrist and up her arm, following the blood vessels and nerves as the orb carved flesh aside and made room for magic in the tiny space of her palm.   
She felt the scream tear from her throat before she heard it. The ragged edges dragging along her larynx, shredding the soft tissue. She tasted blood.   
The orb flickered out, the storm within, gone. And she dropped it on the carpet, her fingers limp. The magic took hold, and rooted itself within her, attaching itself. She could feel its presence, like a myriad of needles, through her hand and up her forearm. It wedged itself in between her nerves, moved against her. She cradled her arm against her chest. She bet over her thighs, trying to put as much pressure on it as her whole body could manage to alleviate some of the ache. She shut her eyes tightly, against the hurt and burn. Tears leaked out and she whimpered.   
Solas put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back into the chair. His hand radiated warmth. The feeling of comfort stole back, by degrees. Her heart slowed and her muscles relaxed but the agony in her hand remained. The magic still pushing against the barrier of her flesh to find a space in which it felt comfortable. Still stabbing and convulsing.   
She opened her eyes and looked at her hand, to see the sickly green hole the magic had made; the storm in her own palm. It flashed and flickered with her heart. She could just make out the bones and tendons which kept things connected, the veins which still pumped blood into her fingers and took it away again. She flexed her hand, as she did in the cold, to test the give the of the joints and gauge the pain. It flashed, horrid and bright. Stinging, burning, prickling, aching all at once. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.   
Flora had the advantage of knowing she was unconscious because she woke in the Fade, surrounded by a grey green blur of colour and a cacophony of sound. She looked at her left hand and it flashed ominously here. The pain arced between the nerves and made her blood sting. She curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest and squeezing her arm in the small space between her body and legs. She saw Cole’s shoes beside her.   
“You were alone. I promised I would keep you safe,” he said, sitting closely to her on the ground. He took her arm and pushed his fingers into the pain points, deadening the stinging and soothing the prickling. He continued into her palm and his fingers pressing lightly on either side of the gaping hole in her hand. She felt the muscles relax slightly and some of the pain flow away. “He will teach you better,” he said, bent over his task.   
She nodded. No questions surfaced now. She didn’t want answers. “There were none anyhow,” she thought, more than a little miserable.   
There was a crunch in the dust and rock behind them. She recognized Mythal’s step. “Come now, little dragon, it isn’t so bad, is it?” she asked, her voice as soft as it was when she looked at an infant crying in its mother’s arms. Flora felt Mythal take her hand, and with a gentle tug brought her to her feet. “You will learn to manage,” she said, looking deeply into the wound.   
“I will have to,” Flora said, curling her fingers inward, trying to protect the injury.   
“I can only add to your burdens today,” Mythal said, sadness clear in her voice. She stroked Flora’s hand softly, in the wake of her fingers, blue flowed into her palm and arced against the green. It pulled her nerves in a different direction. The ache in her hand was answered with one in her heart. “It is the Well of Sorrows, every whisper of every past hurt or injustice, removed from the sufferers. Those who drank from it received great wisdom.”   
Flora looked at her hand, forever ruined in pursuit of purpose.   
“It is not like the buildings but like the flowers,” Cole said, tipping his head up, giving her a look at his eyes for the first time. They were large, startlingly clear, and light. Red rimmed, like he cried constantly; with heavy bags, like he never slept. “The green covers all,” he said, Flora remembered him saying it the other evening. She wondered now, what it meant, given the context of her flashing hand. She looked at him and he ducked his head.   
“I don’t know anything about how to use these,” she said. She wanted Mythal to explain. She was prepared to beg her to do it.   
“You will learn in time,” Mythal said, pressing Flora’s hand between her own, the light pressure pushing the ache away. “Now, it is time to wake up.”   
Flora gasped and opened her eyes. She pulled in a lungful of air and curled her left hand in on itself, into a fisted ball of agony.  
“Ah, you are back,” Solas said, leaning forward in the chair across from her. “And with Mythal’s blessing, I see.”   
“The Well of Sorrows.”   
“A very powerful gift,” he said, nodding his head towards the blue; flashing and arcing in her hand. The green crackled malignantly underneath it. “The pain will fade slightly, as it settles. But I am afraid this is where you and I must part.”   
“Aren’t you going to try to teach me to use this?” Flora said, gesturing with her hand, the mark flashing between them.   
“No. I shall leave it to others who have studied it more than I.”   
“I am sure you are the person who knows the most about this,” she said, grimacing slightly at another arcing wave of electrified pain.  
“I cannot claim the title. I shall leave you to Dorian. He knows more,” Solas said with a small smile. He rose from his chair and extended a hand to help her up. He tucked her left hand firmly into the bend of his elbow, helping alleviate the ache. Flora walked through the hall, trailing her fingers along the wall, looking for the last traces of Mythal. “She will be where you are going,” he reminded her, a touch of sadness in his tone.   
He led them through the maze of the hulking, floating ruin. His steps were slower than usual, as if he were trying to prolong the last few seconds. They approached a large glowing stone door, it was intricately carved with Elves and plants, Flora assumed it would tell a story if she were knowledgeable enough. He pressed his hand against it and it pulsed once and dimmed. He pushed it open and in the center of the room, with four intact walls, stood a massive mirror. Flora could see them reflected in it, they looked courtly, despite Solas’ bare feet and her sparking hand. He dropped her hand and brushed his fingers against the surface, whispering something which she could not hear. The mirror glowed and shimmered.   
“Isn’t there a traditional means of travel? A horse maybe?” she said, trying to lighten the tension created by new expectations; their diverging pathways.   
“Not as direct,” he said, looking behind her. The light coming from the mirror stopped any reflection, and so, Flora heard Sandal before she saw him. He smiled at her when they stood side by side. He gripped the strap of his satchel.   
It felt portentous. “Well, I suppose it is,” she thought. “This is the next step. The first one beyond the point of no return.” Her hand flashed and sparked, causing Flora to make a tight fist at her side. She did not want Solas’ last impression of her to be doubled over in pain. She pulled her shoulders back. She was as ready as she would ever be.   
Solas took her hand, and uncurled her fingers from her palm. Gently, like Mythal had done in the Fade. He followed the path of the blue sparks with reverence. “Go, Little Dragon. I will be watching.” He gave her a sad smile and pulled her into the mirror’s glass.   
It felt cold, like the way silver feels when it is left in the snow. It enveloped her. Swallowed her whole. It bubbled and flowed. She took a tentative step forward, unsure of the ground. She extended her arms in front of her, her hands searching for something solid, like walking in the middle of the night, during the darkest hours, in one’s home. She pushed a silvery bubble out of the way, and pulled her hand back in shock at the contact. It was breathtakingly cold. She shivered and took another step forward, feeling with her toes for ground. It was slow. Disorienting.   
“The best path forward is probably a straight line,” she said, taking another cautious step forward, her hands still extended. When all at once she felt humidity and warmth. She saw a glow as she emerged, the flickering orange usually cast by actual flame. And then she fell.


	7. Chapter 7

She landed hard. And flat. On a stone floor. Her breath left, all at once; knocked from her by the force of the fall. She gasped. Opened her mouth. Inhaled nothing. She struggled against the new forced timing of her lungs. She heard yelling and doors slamming. She looked around, struggling to breathe, noticing there was no furniture in the room. Remembering Sandal was to come through next, heaving, she rolled herself out of the way before he landed on her.   
“Well, at least they noticed I am here,” she thought, as she heard Sandal land beside her. She was looking at his feet, because, of course, he managed to land properly while she was a heaping and heaving mass of suit wool and silk on the floor. “I don’t know if this is an improvement over the last time but, at least, I will not be waiting for hours.”  
The yelling came closer, there was a dominate voice she recognized from one of her walks in the Fade. “Venhedis,” she heard him yell. She heard him approach the door at speed and the rasp of his breath, still the same, even after almost a decade passed between the events of her dream and now. She was familiar to him, or at least looked it, and, in her scramble to breathe and stand, she feared his reaction. Her heart furiously pumped blood into lungs still regulating themselves. Her body swayed with the force.   
She heard the key turn in the lock of the door, and rose to her feet. Flora would not be surprised if he shot or stabbed first and didn’t even bother to ask questions later. The door opened, slowly, he was being cautious, not entirely certain of what awaited him, she knew. Her muscles tensed, preparing for an onslaught and her heart rate rose further, ferociously beating against her ribs. She inhaled in short, shallow gulps.   
She saw him, framed in the door, a fire spell readied. She had barely enough time to fling a barrier over herself and Sandal as he launched a barrage of wildfire at her.   
“Stop,” she yelled, over the roar of the flames. “I don’t want to hurt you.”   
“That would be a welcome change,” he yelled, casting a fire mine underneath her feet.   
She used her barrier to dispel the fiery explosive glyph. She cast the barrier again, moving to stand in front of Sandal, to absorb the force of the flames she knew would be coming. “That’s why there is no furniture here,” she said, pulling her focus up and to force him back with a shockwave. “Can’t we just talk, for a minute?” she yelled, as he staggered backwards. The next spell burned hotter, as waves of flame sped away from him.   
“I said my final words to you six years ago.” He spat the words out. And he cast another mine underneath her feet and let loose a barrage of fire balls. “You selfish, spoiled, vindictive, vengeful,” his vocabulary sputtered as he unleashed a new volley of flame.   
Panicking, she pushed more magic into her barrier. She didn’t want to start casting harmful spells. Anything that could do damage to him or his home. “I just need you to listen,” she said. “I’m not her.”   
“Sure, you aren’t,” he said snidely.   
She felt Sandal tug on her blue wool jacket. Lightly, to gain her attention. She was so focused on keeping them safe from the fire, she could not turn her head to look at him. Sandal sighed, loud enough for her to hear over the static magic created in the air and the thunder of the fire. And suddenly, it all stopped. The man was standing still, a fireball blooming from his palm.   
“Not enchantment,” Sandal said, nodding his head towards the still figure in the doorframe.   
“How long will it last?” she asked, the blue in her palm arcing more than the green.   
Sandal shrugged his shoulders.   
“Okay. Can he hear me?” She let the barrier down.   
Sandal clapped his hands together, loudly, and the man’s eyes tracked towards the movement.   
“I guess so,” she said, walking forward. “Really, there is nothing in life which prepares one for that kind of introduction.” She took a second to dust herself off and straighten her jacket and skirt. She pushed her hair out of her face and took a breath in, the kind usually taken when one is forced to be cheerful in a stressful situation.   
“Well, now that is out of the way. I cannot genuinely think of a way to explain what is going on. Everything seems monumentally inadequate,” she said, eyeing the placement of his palm critically and taking a few steps to the left before walking forward once more. She watched closely, for any sign the enchantment might be breaking, which would allow him freedom of movement once again.  
“My name is Flora. Wait, was that her name too?” she looked to Sandal for confirmation. He nodded. “Well, that was a useless bit of information then. I am sticking with I am not her. Look,” she said, pointing to her intact left arm which bore the twin marks of Solas and Mythal, she waved it slightly. “Last I heard, Solas cut hers off.”   
She saw his eyes widen slightly. “I am going to assume you are Dorian. I like using names, you see, and in the absence of actually knowing yours for sure, that is the one I am going with,” she looked at him for any sign of acknowledgement. He rolled his eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.   
“I came through the mirror,” she flung her right hand back and then looked to make sure her gesture was accurate, but there was nothing on the wall behind her. She turned back to him, eyes widening slightly with surprise. She saw his eyes look towards the ceiling. Where the mirror was bolted in place, above her head. “Ah, clever,” she said.   
“Well, I fell through it and landed on your floor. And until you can ask questions, anything I say will sound trite and useless. And, I feel like I am talking to myself. So, we may as well wait until this thing wears off. If you don’t mind, I am just going to take a seat here, on the floor, away from that,” she said, gesturing to the fire ball which had further formed in the palm of Dorian’s hand. She slid down the wall, and extended her legs in front of her, crossing them at the ankle. “I trust we will be able to have a mostly civil discussion.”   
Sandal walked around Dorian, taking note of his work, like a scientist filing away experimental observations on a test subject. He pulled a notebook and pencil from his satchel and started to jot down his findings.   
As the adrenaline ebbed away the pain flowed back into her hand. She reflexively curled her fingers inwards, pressing them into her palm. The gesture was slight and the relief small, but weakness was unthinkable now. She stayed within Dorian’s peripheral vision, watching him closely. Sandal finished a circuit and walked to her, handing her one of the botany books from his satchel. A clear signal he would keep watch for however long it took for whatever magic this was to wear off. It also familiar, like the comforting feeling Solas was able to produce or Mythal’s draw. “It must be old,” she thought.   
She opened the book, and flipped through a few dozen pages, until she found her place. “Inez Arancia really is useless. Are all the Chantry approved scholars this bad?” she asked.   
She could hear a disgusted and annoyed breath escape from Dorian and she could imagine his eyes rolling without looking up from the book. “I can direct you to twenty volumes about whether Divine Galatea took a shit on a Sunday,” he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I want those notes,” Dorian said, attempting to move his head to follow Sandal as he walked.   
“Well, since you’re talking now…” Flora started, closing the book with enough force to make a banging noise which reverberated through and exacerbated the ache in her palm. She bit her lips to prevent a small cry of pain from escaping and was not entirely successful.   
“Yes. Yes. We will get to you in a minute,” Dorian said, still trying to crane his neck to see what Sandal was writing. “Where did you learn this?”   
“Not enchantment,” was his characteristic response.   
“Yes. I know that. I can feel it. But where? How?”   
Sandal shrugged his shoulders.   
“About my left arm,” she said, laying the book in her lap and folding her hands over it, she pressed her right hand hard over her left, hoping to alleviate a little of the ache. “We really do need to talk about that. And what it means. And what I know.”   
“Not where I would have started,” Dorian said, she could feel the pointed look he wanted to turn and give her in his sarcastic tone.   
“Well, that requires I explain the multiverse and string theory. And I do not have enough academic credentials to even start on that,” she said, pushing herself up from the floor. “I hate having conversations when one person is standing and the other seated.”   
“It does tend to affect the power dynamics,” he said. “Unless one of them is frozen where he stands, in which case, the floor is all yours. Please. Explain why a woman who we all thought we were well rid of appeared in one of my closets.”   
“I was brought here, from another world. A really different one. But then I chose to stay,” she said, gesturing with the arcing mark in her palm. “Primarily, I think, because I look like your former Inquisitor. Except, like I said, I still have my arm. And this new sparkling addition,” she said, as the blue of the Well of Sorrows flashed through her palm.  
“I will give you the colour is new,” Dorian said, with reluctance. “And I do have to concede the arm bit, considering I was the one who had to heal the bloody mess Solas left us.”   
“And that, brings me to what I am here for,” she said, flashing a toothy false smile. “Amazing segue. The mess Solas is about to make of your world.”   
“Ha. Another religious hopeful falling from magical realms unknown and is here to save the world. I have seen that drama play out and, I have to say, the reviews and poor actors left me unwilling to see the sequel.”   
“Fair,” she said, tilting her head, slightly. “That is fair. Look we can trade insults and quips all day, or night. I really have no idea what time it is. But we need to come to an understanding. Solas said I would need you. At the very least, to teach me about this thing in my hand. There is more we need to do and I would beg you, as someone who once counted Solas as a friend, to listen to me.”   
Dorian rolled his head from side to side as the magic slowly left his neck and shoulders, like he was stretching after a long day spent sitting in front of a computer. Flora moved a few steps to the left, out of the way of the fireball which would soon leave his palm.   
“Fine. I concede. We will speak, like civilized adults. In the library. So, I won’t feel like setting you on fire lest I lose my books,” Dorian said, shaking himself out of what remained of Sandal’s magic. “I still want those notes,” he said, pointing to Sandal.   
“I am sure if you ask nicely, he will copy them for you,” she said, flashing him a feral smile. She waited for Dorian to lead them out of the closet. His eyes narrowed, and he cast a barrier over himself before confidently stepping out. Flora laughed. “I am not going to injure you while your back is turned. I have need of you and I will accomplish nothing by pettily throwing spells or daggers. Which I do nto have.”   
“I suppose there is that,” he said, she could hear irony drip from each clipped and crystal syllable. The only thing that would put them on better footing was time and a conversation.   
“A long one,” she thought, as they walked through a stone corridor. The air was heavy with humidity. The halls he led them through were cool and constant, which she suspected had more to do with the thickness of the stone walls surrounding them, but the moisture still seeped in. Lights flickered on as they went, she thought it was like power saving in an office building where lights turned on only when one entered the space, just with magic. Or possibly enchantments.   
“Enchantment,” Sandal said, suppling the answer as he pointed to the glowing runes carved into the wall behind the glass fixtures.   
“Yes. Obviously. I don’t go around frivolously casting spells,” Dorian said, stopping at a set of double wooden doors and pushing them open. “Here we are. The safest place for you at the moment.”   
It was a magnificent library, tall shelves lined the walls and the furniture looked comfortable, clearly and plushily stuffed with feathers to make sitting reading a book for long hours more than enjoyable. He gestured towards a table near an open window with a pitcher and glasses in its center. A breeze blew the light silk curtains, then they were sucked back, trailing lightly on the floor.   
Flora sat in one of the chairs, the silk upholstery was cool underneath her fingers. She turned to look out of the window. The sun was setting. The heat muted the colours in the sky to pinks and mauves. She sighed, a light breath at her first sign of the outdoors and she hadn’t realized how much she missed it. Sandal busied himself looking at the books on the shelves closest to them.  
Dorian strode into the room, the soles of his soft leather boots, striking hard against the stone floors. He picked up Flora’s left arm and started to turn it rather roughly. She felt the give of her flesh underneath his fingers. He pressed deeply into the muscle and sinew. He prodded it with magic. It hurt. It turned the aches into bright hot pain and the constant needling sting into a flow of agony, moving through her veins as her heart beat faster. She bit back a cry of pain, still unwilling to show weakness; vulnerability. She needed to maintain the upper hand, the veneer of confidence and collectedness for only a few more minutes. Only long enough to get him asking questions.   
Sandal turned and leaned against the bookshelf, crossing his arms over his chest, levelling Dorian with a direct stare. “Well, what would you have me do?” Dorian asked him. “She travels with an arcanist.” He looked at her then and his features softened as he clearly saw the strain, she knew it was written in the set of her mouth and deepening of the lines around her eyes. He put her arm gently back on the table.   
“Your bedside manner is terrible,” she said, pulling her arm towards her. “Even Solas, with all his impatient instruction, was better than that.”   
“Well, it seems to be real,” he said, and Flora could still feel the prod of magic along her nerves.   
“The arm or the mark?”   
“Both. All three, actually. I see the other power there, hidden behind the rest.”   
She held up her hand to show him as it arced blue. “Not really hidden I would say. Her mark was only green. I saw it flash once.”   
“If you aren’t from Thedas, how did you see that?” he asked, but a fundamental question lurked behind it, and Flora heard it clearly: are you who you say. He covered the insecurity by pouring wine from a pitcher on the table. “I refuse to do this without wine. Good wine.” He pushed a glass towards her.   
“I dreamed of her once, in the Fade. I watched her do something awful; then you came along and tried to make it better.”  
“And what altruistic act was I performing?” he asked, sipping from his glass.   
“It was the day the Commander was set to give in,” she took a fortifying sip from her glass. It was red. Heady and dry. Spicy with a hint of sweet violet in the aftertaste. She sat forward in her seat slightly, her anxiety now taking hold as confidence vanished with the adrenaline.   
“You mean the day he was told to,” Dorian said, placing his glass on the table as though the bitter thread in his words would affect the wine.   
“Yes, you and Solas came. Then Cole sent me back.”   
“You are a Dreamer,” he said, turning fully to see her across the table. “You dream yourself into the Fade.”   
“I don’t know,” she said. “I have done but I don’t know if that was because of where I was when I was awake. Solas’ home is a surreal floating ruin in the middle of nothingness.”   
“All white expanse and floating debris,” he nodded. “More than anything he needs a good housekeeper. I don’t suppose his cultists are restoring the ancient Elvhenen architecture?”   
“Not that I saw. And I only heard three other people there. Sandal,” she said gesturing towards him. “And the two people sent to find him.”   
“What else did you see in the Fade?”   
“Small stories. Hurt. Injustice. Loneliness. Illness. Sadness. People aching even in celebration. Always a memory behind it all driving relief rather than genuine happiness,” she drifted to a stop.   
“A powerful dreamer then,” his voice quiet. “The things the Magisterium would do to you if they found out. You would be elevated to the status of a living god.”   
“You already have one wandering around, why would you possibly need a second?”   
“Ah yes. The Elvhenen god who masqueraded as an apostate.”  
“Your friend,” she reminded him.   
“Former friend.”   
“Still you felt something for him once. Enough to save him from himself?”   
“Is that what you have been put here to do?” he asked with a scoff, slouching back in his chair. “Not save my world from demons?”   
“It is what Mythal asked of me. He asked something different.”   
“You speak to dead gods too in the Fade? Well, your social life in Thedas just keeps getting more and more lively.” He picked his glass up from the table and took a long sip. “And did the goddess tell you how we were to accomplish everything on your list?”   
“No. They just sent me to you saying you would know what to do with me.”   
“Well, I have an idea of what do but for that we will need to travel to the border. It will take us a few days to get ready but that is something to contemplate in the morning, when I can do something about it,” Dorian said. “Now, I want to sit and finish this wine, while you tell me stories of this world you say exists elsewhere.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Twenty days on a horse. Seriously?” Flora gestured her ribbon wrapped left hand towards the horses in the courtyard, waiting to be led to the carriage house after having their shoes checked at the blacksmith. Cole suggested the ribbons last night, in the Fade, to prevent the magisters from taking advantage. It had been an exhausting conversation, with many literalities and oddities. Dorian found the navy-blue silk lengths for her this morning, agreeing with Cole. Her anxiety bubbled in her tiredness; the thought of travelling by horseback made her stomach roll.   
“Not all on horseback. For some of it you will enjoy my charming company in the confines of a carriage. Until we get the mountains. But I assure you, I am equally charming on a horse but I look more dashing,” he said with a sharp smile.   
“I do not know how to ride a horse. Drive a car, yes. Something with a mind of its own, no.”   
“You will have at least fifteen days to know your horse’s mind and to master the skill,” he said, pulling books off shelves, opening their covers, and then deciding whether or not to put them in his saddle bag, which was taking up most of the library table. “Do you think you will want to read romance novels?” he asked, flipping through another book.   
“Not if they’re Varric’s,” she responded, anxiously looking out the window at the height of the horses.   
“Oh, I know. Casssandra lent me one once. I felt stupider for having read it. Poetry strike your fancy?” he asked, looking up and leaning slightly backwards to see what had her so focused.   
“Will it help me have a conversation with Cole?”   
“Nothing can help you there. So that is a no to poetry,” he said, replacing the book on the shelf. “You aren’t going to be remarkably boring and only read about plants, are you?”   
“I hadn’t considered it. Sandal has my books,” she said, counting the horses; seven so far.   
“Does he have your clothing as well?”   
“This and an impractical set of nightwear are all I have,” she said, turning into the room and gesturing to the blue wool suit and silk blouse she had worn every day for almost two weeks. Her stockings had shredded days ago, leaving her barefoot in her brown oxford pumps.   
“Impractical nightwear sounds salacious but also very useless. At least we aren’t in the south and having to camp in the snow. Yet,” his expression was one of comical distaste. Flora almost laughed. “We need to get you something practical for travelling. I shall send someone out for that now. Maevaris can probably help. Just one more thing for me to ask of her. My absence from the Magisterium will be a burden for her. Ambassador Pavus it will have to be for the time being.” He sighed.  
She had not realized, until now, how much Solas was asking of them. He knew, as she did now, they would leave everything. All of them would help. In a way, they were saving their work, their collective efforts to make the world a better place, she supposed. She rummaged through the first couple of books in the saddle bag. “I’ve read Hard in Hightown. Solas had a copy. Signed even. “  
“Excellent. Then we can replace it with something else. I am buying a whole crate of books in Antiva City. That should get us through the ship ride to the Storm Coast,” he said, piling another few volumes in.   
“As it is your horse will have a problem bearing the weight of all those books,” Flora eyed the contents of the bag, knowing just how heavy a pile of books can be.   
“It is enchanted. The horse won’t feel a thing. And we will have enough to keep us entertained until we get to my house on the border. There is barely any civilization between here and there. And between there and Antiva City. In fact, none at all, unless you count a small collection of hamlets along the way.” From his tone it was obvious to Flora that he did not consider any hamlet civilization.   
He left the library and Flora turned her attention to the bookshelves, attempting to find an interesting title. The Death of a Templar didn’t sound like something she wanted to read while hearing the Commander’s agonized pleading in her head. She scanned the shelves, The Journal of a Tranquil, The Journal of Enchanter Wilhelm, A Journal on Dwarven Ruins, A Study of the Fifth Blight (a massive multi-volume doorstop), a book about a city eponymously named Arlathan, which she put in the saddle bag, thinking some knowledge about an ancient Elvhenen city might be useful, as did any book she found on their mythology and stories. Chronicles of a Forgotten War also made it into the saddle bag. Given leave, Flora would have packed the whole library but she thought Dorian might not take kindly to completely empty shelves.   
She could hear the bustle of servants in the halls. Fetching things. Preparing baggage. Shutting up public rooms which would lie unused for months on end. She heard the call of ravens from somewhere in the house. “The Inquisition’s?” she wondered aloud, as she walked the length of a shelf, seeing but not reading the titles. While she was the cause of the whirlwind of activity in the Magister’s house, she was left with nothing to do. Nothing to pack or prepare. Everything was being handled outside of her, even the choosing of new clothing. It felt wrongly complacent. “However, it would also feel rude to beg for a task to do,” she said, likening it to being told not to do the dishes at a dinner party. “Well, it is a rationalization. Not a good one; merely an effort,” she thought.   
Three days passed in this manner, with Flora wandering aimlessly with nothing to do except read books on magic, be prodded by a dressmaker, and eat the sumptuous fare Dorian considered normal. She still passed her nights in the Fade, swimming up through the sickening smear of colour and demons into the torrent of emotions. Every night passed watching some important event in someone else’s life. Every night, seeing some new aspect of the Commander’s torment, understanding yet another reason for his pleading. It was, quite frankly, exhausting. Flora was more on edge and more grateful Dorian was handling the arrangements; leaving her out of the storm of preparation.   
She and Sandal made their own preparations. They were on a much smaller scale. He made Flora a satchel out of soft leather, it was plain; the lines clean and precisely stitched, just the way she preferred her handbags. And it could hold anything and everything, from books to ball gowns. Not that she owned a ball gown. She knew this because he unceremoniously pulled one of the many suits of armour in the library from its depths, piece by piece. This caused Flora no small amount of panic, and she insisted they reassemble it on its plinth. It looked a bit haphazard and misshapen but at least she couldn’t be accused of stealing it. Not that Dorian had been anything other than kind, but he still regarded her with some suspicion after her rather unceremonious entry to his home.   
Besides, she had no need of the armor as Dorian’s friend provided clothing for Flora in an almost comic abundance. There were piles of it in her room when she woke one morning. Long leather coats, wide belts, filmy tunics, leggings, riding boots modelled after her oxfords. There were silk dresses, for when they arrived in Antiva City, she was informed. And what she assumed was practical nightwear but was very different from loose cotton pyjama pants and a camisole. Now it was time to leave and she waited, dressed in the fashions of Thedas with more clothing in her bag, which should be overflowing with filmy fabric, lace, and ribbons were it not for an enchantment.   
“Jospehine will likely host a dinner. And Millicent Trevelyan will want to get a good look at you,” Dorian said on the morning they were to leave while waiting for the carriage. “She is supposed to be your aunt, by the way.”   
Flora nodded her head and wiped her ribbon wrapped hand on the bottom hem of the light cotton tunic she wore, watching as three liveried outriders trotted into the courtyard. The carriage followed shortly after and rolled to a stop in front of them. It was like the architecture around them, opulent, ostentatious, and over decorated. But the interior looked comfortable, if a little dark.   
She could feel Dorian looking at her, examining the small signs of her anxiety, evaluating her genuineness, looking for minute differences in her appearance and manner from the Inquisitor. “Well, they would have at least five days to come to terms with one another. To find some common ground,” she thought as she stepped forward and into the carriage.   
Flora left the books in her bag as she settled. For two reasons: the first, she wasn’t sure if travelling by carriage would make her motion sick and it was better to test it without reading and, second, to signal her openness to conversation. She knew she needed Dorian fully on her side. If nothing else because she required a teacher. However, some feeling, another voice in her mind, told her she would need him; that he would provide something fundamental to the solving of some great mystery.   
She felt the carriage sway as Dorian and Sandal climbed in and settled. The horses moved restlessly, anxious to get underway and causing the vehicle to roll slightly. Dorian knocked on the roof with an ornate staff and they rolled off.   
They moved slowly through the city. Foot and horse traffic impeding their progress on the smoothly paved streets. She worried at the ribbon in her palm. While it helped to dull the pain in her hand to an ache, it felt odd. Its constant presence an annoyance. Dorian reached across and stilled her hand. “It isn’t for much longer. By the time we reach the Storm Coast, you will need to show it off,” his voice quiet and soft.   
“After twenty days, I will be used to it,” her fingers cramped from the awkward position, constantly rubbing near the top of her palm. “You will likely have a hard time getting me to give it up. It does help a bit with the pain.”   
“The Inquisitor’s mark was only painful near the end. After it became uncontrollable,” he said, stroking the corner of his lip and mustache.   
“He said it would be painful forever but that I wouldn’t lose my arm. Just have a ghastly hole in my hand, constantly able to see its inner workings through a haze of magical energy,” she shrugged, as though it didn’t affect her anymore, but the nonchalance was patently pretended. And Dorian knew it.  
“Sometimes there is no winning,” he said, shaking his head slightly, lost somewhere in his memory. He shook it off just as soon as the mood came over him, turning to something academic in an instant. “But perhaps we can learn something to control the pain while we travel along.”   
“Equal footing on common ground?”   
“Exactly that.”   
He smiled at her then. A genuinely warm smile. The first real gesture and offer of friendship he made. Until this point, she realized, he thought of her as a tool – the mechanism through which a new set of problems could be solved. Now, they were moving to something more familiar; more friendly.   
The trip to the mountains on the border between the Tevinter Imperium and Antiva was accomplished with little discomfort over the next several days. In her dreams, she saw people’s lives play out against new backgrounds. And always, the Commander’s voice beckoned her. His own loss of purpose drawing her, relentlessly. She woke, every morning, with new understanding and greater exhaustion. Which meant she was travelling with little energy and her anxiety was closer to the surface, especially when it came to learning new skills. Like horseback riding. On mountain trails and rocky terrain.   
“Don’t worry about knowing your horse’s mind,” Dorian said. “He will be so envious of how good I make my horse look that is all he will be focused on. He will follow me and all you need to do is stay upright.”   
She stiffened in the saddle, her back straightening and her legs tensing, unconsciously testing the give in the leather stirrups. He gave her a critical look. “Your seat is atrocious, but it will get better with practice.” Sandal trotted by, smiling on his own horse.   
“I suppose it is a bit like skiing. The reflexes required develop with time and familiarity,” she sighed. Heavily. She mimicked Dorian’s movements and her horse started along the mountain trail.   
Another few days passed this way, the air getting thinner as they ascended. The sunsets and sunrises becoming more vibrant, instead of muted pastels, florid jewel tones. She could hear the breeze in the grasses and the leaves, rustling as they went along. It made her smile; not something wide and toothy, but soft and contented. Dorian pointed out various useful plants along the way, calling her attention every so often to an interesting bit of foliage. Giving her lessons in history and politics; manners and comportment; and what little magic could be performed from the back of a horse. In the evenings, they took turns reading to each other around the campfire.   
“The Randy Dowager Quarterly, recommends this one, three scarves fluttered in shock out of five,” he said one evening, before opening Obeying Her Order. The book itself was a truly horrible romance which had Flora snickering whenever it was her turn to read the flamboyant descriptions. “Well, it is only marginally better than your explanations last evening of how plants propagate. Those were just as lurid,” he said, sighing and rolling his eyes, almost affectionately. Sandal smiled and laughed at the joke as he ate the ridiculously opulent travel rations Dorian produced from saddle bags night after night. All of them, perfectly packaged and kept.   
The next day, as they descended the mountain, a villa came into view. It was comfortably nestled into the foothills and along a lake. It was hard to see any of the details at this distance, except the colour.   
“Is it pink?” she asked.   
“Yes,” he sighed. “As a concession for my interior design, Bull chose the exterior stone. Dawn Stone. Because it was pretty.” The consonants in the last word were clipped and the tees were sharp. “He couldn’t have armor made out of the blasted stuff because it is too brittle, shattering with a sword impact or worse when there is magic involved. And there is always magic involved these days. So, he wanted a house made out of it. And I obliged.”   
Flora nodded her head. “Compromises must be made,” she said, following Dorian along the fork in the road which seemed to lead directly to the house.   
“You do not know the half of it,” he looked at her, seeing her sway to the side in the saddle. “We should be there before dinner. But you seemed to have learned a little. It will get easier. And we shall see what we can do to keep you out of the Fade.”   
“Will Bull have a suggestion for that?”   
“Yes. Wine and ale. And a terrible whiskey he loves. But I do not think those will work for you. At least, not permanently.” He looked at her with sharpness and genuine concern, taking in her entire state, and Flora knew the bags under her eyes were getting worse.   
“I think I have a myriad of excuses for drinking heavily this evening. Not the least of which is this horse,” she leaned in the saddle again, her exhaustion and inexperience making maintaining her seat more difficult than it ought to be.  
“If you make it to drinks,” he said, tugging her back. “Regardless, for that and sleep, we must make it to my charming pink lake house. Without you falling of your horse.”   
Flora spent the rest of the day under Dorian and Sandal’s watch, Dorian’s close observation of her emotional and physical state should have made her nervous, the same way the doctor would when she was at home. However, in this case, the doctor was a friend who noticed the signs of ill health and was concerned enough to ask. Something she realized she didn’t have before. Another marker of affection and stability she didn’t understand was missing until she experienced it here.   
It was late afternoon before they rounded the lake and rode into the courtyard. Flora was very nearly toppled from the saddle by the booming voice of Bull. At least, that is who she assumed it was.   
“Kadan. We wondered when you would arrive. I wouldn’t let Krem open the wine until you got here,” his deep voice filled the space, which was an impressive feat given the size of the courtyard. He walked down the steps and swept Dorian up into his arms as soon as he dismounted.   
“Amatus,” Dorian said. And then he sneezed.   
“Did you bring your handkerchief?” Bull asked, raising what was left of an eyebrow over his patched eye.   
“I am not allergic to strip weed. I do not need a handkerchief. You are always fussing like an old,” and he sneezed again.   
“You always say that. Then you take my handkerchief,” at this he offered a white square of fabric, which Dorian took, reluctance evident in every movement. “Tomorrow you will order everyone out to cut down the strip weed. For tea, you will say.” He chuckled.   
“I will not,” Dorian blew his nose and his posture, Flora decided, could best be described as petulant.   
While the exchange was clearly not meant to be private, carried out as it was in front of all the servants of the house, several scruffy individuals who spilled out of the front door, herself, Sandal, and the horses, it was shockingly intimate.   
“Besides,” Dorian said, pointing at her. “She will refuse to let me boil it, insisting she must study it.”   
“The newest addition to the pantheon of prophets,” Bull said, turning slightly and wrapping his arm around Dorian’s shoulders, to get a better look at Flora. “Krem, help her out of the saddle before she falls out of it.”   
A man pushed through the crowd of what could only be described as ruffians and vagabonds clustered at the door. His armor was well kept and everything about him spoke to an obsessive neatness, from his close-cropped hair to the angular precision of his jerkin’s collar. Flora made a genuine attempt to dismount the horse. She managed successfully over the last few days, with few mishaps, but today her fatigue, anxiety, and stiffness had her tangled in the stirrups and reins and landing less than gracefully in Krem’s waiting arms.   
“How did he know I would fall?” she whispered as Krem’s arms tightened around her and he shifted her.   
“In addition to it being fairly obvious to anyone who looked at you? Boss used to be a spy. One of the best there was.” Krem set her on her feet and kept his hand at her shoulder, bracing her against her own exhaustion and over-exertion. Sandal gave her a searching look, making sure she was well cared for before continuing inside the villa. “I didn’t think Dorian would push anyone this hard.”   
“He didn’t. I haven’t been sleeping well.”   
“Well, Antivan wine will fix that. We were going to open the casks. With axes,” he winked at her.   
“Not inside,” Dorian called over his shoulder as he and Bull walked in. “I swear, the Chargers are like having an unruly pack of children.”   
“He’s not wrong,” Krem said with a smile. “I consider myself the responsible adolescent who can be left in charge and be trusted to run errands.”   
“That is your job description in its entirely, Krem,” Bull’s echoed through the courtyard from just inside the door. “Are you opening the wine cask or not? She looks like she needs it.”   
“Come on,” Krem gestured with his head towards the open ornately carved doors, Flora recognized the Tevene motifs, and tugged on her arm lightly. “Let’s find you a chair you can sink into and I will make sure someone supplies you with wine and good food.”   
She smiled at him. His ready acceptance of her, fuelled partially by Dorian’s comfort, she knew, made her exhaustion and the unreality of her situation a little easier to bear. She followed him into the warmth and cheer radiating from the door of Dorian and Bull’s home.


	9. Chapter 9

The road to Antiva City felt short, even on horseback for fifteen days. The Chargers kept everyone amused along the way, trading quips and insults. Telling the stories of their adventures through Thedas.   
“We could hear the thunder of the giant’s footsteps. He roared and it echoed through the valley. I saw D’Hiver piss his pants. It leaked out of his cuffs. He quaked as he waited. Then the boss comes out of the cave in nothing but his small clothes, running backwards, waving his great axe like candy before a small child,” Krem said, laughing half way through his sentence, unable to stop before he got to the punchline.   
Bull’s hearty chuckle preceded him up the line of horses. “He thought the amulet he bought from a random street urchin, with full emotional expression, was enchanted to control the giant.”   
“What happened then?” Flora asked.   
“I dove into a pile of shit. Smelled awful for a week,” Bull said.   
“This is why soap was invented,” Dorian said.   
“Then,” Krem said, raising his voice above the jeers and laughter from the rest of the Chargers. “Then, D’Hiver got crushed under the giant’s ass as it ran by and slipped on some shale, coming right down on his noble head. The amulet didn’t work. At all,” he said, laughing.   
Flora gasped in shock, laughter, and dismay.   
“You needn’t worry, my dear. Yes, it was a waste of life and all those wonderful high sentiments you should profess in cases such as these. But he died of his own stupidity,” Dorian said, lightly.   
A raven called out as it circled above their heads. It swooped and dove and eventually landed on Bull’s shoulder.   
“Mail’s here,” he said, unravelling a small roll of parchment which had been tied to the bird’s leg. “Looks like the Nightingale knows what’s going on.”   
“Frightening reality, a Divine with enough spies to know how often you piss,” Dorian said. “But I did send her a letter. And if I hadn’t, Josephine most certainly did.”   
“The Wren will have sent it,” Krem said, laughing at Dorian. “There is no escaping the spies here.” His glance took in all the chargers. Bull handed the note to Dorian.   
“It looks like our journey just got longer. All the way to Val Royeaux,” Dorian said, sighing. “At least another ten days on a horse. There is no way Cullen is travelling that distance on a ship. It will have to be the long way around.”   
“I can understand why he wouldn’t,” Flora said, just below the volume she knew Dorian could hear. Rocky, was a dwarven explosives expert whose hearing had been damaged, didn’t catch it but it didn’t escape Bull’s ears. He turned sharply and his look invited her, in a compulsory way, to explain. “I dreamed it,” she said looking at her hands as she threaded the reins through them.   
He cast a dark look at Dorian. Flora had seen the definition of “if looks could kill” many times in her life, from small children vowing revenge for a punishment to bosses who wanted your glory. This one, superseded all of them in her definition of the timeworn expression. Dorian should have burst into flames or torn apart from the inside, based on the look Bull was levelling in his direction. Which he chose not to see.   
“A dreamer,” Bull said.   
And the young elven woman, named Dalish, whistled slow and low.   
“Andraste’s flaming tits,” Krem said. “What people wouldn’t give to get their hands on you.”  
Flora’s cheeks flushed; she could feel them burning. She kept quiet.   
“Well, vashedan. At least, that clears up one of the matters of what might be different.” Bull said.   
“What else is different?” Flora asked, before she could stop herself.   
“Between you and her? The other one?” Krem said from behind her. “All sorts of things.”   
“You’re actually nice,” Dalish said, quietly.   
“That means nothing,” Stitches called out over the din of the horses’ hooves on the packed dirt path. “That is like saying potatoes are tasty. Your laugh is kind. Actually, you laugh. That is the place I would start.”   
“You are here in the middle of us and that says more than you know. To us,” Krem said. “It says you trust us. It says that you like us. It says that we can trust you. In the Chargers, you do your job and you have each other’s back. You might not be experienced yet, but I am willing to wager you wouldn’t think twice about wasting your energy reserves to cast a barrier so I don’t take a hit.”   
“How can you tell so much from so little? I don’t even know those things about myself,” Flora said, her cheeks still painfully red.   
“Boss was a spy remember,” Krem said with a wink. “We may have picked up a thing or two over time. Learned the signs of who to trust with our lives. You’re one of the good ones.” His armored hand clapped her on the shoulder. “She would have ridden ahead or sulked behind. She would have kept herself safe and wouldn’t spare a care for anyone in her party. She wouldn’t have trusted me to catch her from a horse. Would have blasted me off my ass and watched me burn if I laid a hand on her.”   
The heads of the Chargers bobbed with more than just the movement of their horses.   
And so, the days passed like this. All fifteen of them. Flora learned more about riding a horse and a bit more about magic from Dorian and Dalish, who still insisted she was a back-up archer and not a mage. Stitches taught her how to make healing potions from plants along the road. He taught her the difference between royal, bitter, gossamer, and regular varietals of elfroot. Rocky moaned about not being able to teach her explosives until they reached the Storm Coast and had something to blow up.   
The effect of the harbour lights and bridges was lost on her as they descended through Antiva City’s carved terraces. Dorian pointed out the slender towers of the royal residence up on the hill top. Light spilled from the windows and down the hill, stretching out over the gardens.   
“It seems they are having a party tonight,” Bull said.   
“The Antivan’s are always celebrating something, Boss,” Krem said.   
“Where does Josephine live?” Flora glanced around at the houses; it was hard to tell their specific colour as the soft glow of light from the windows was the only illumination in the dark.   
“The Montilyet’s have a town house on The Boulevard of the Seas. Pity you shall not see it in daylight,” Dorian said, nudging his horse to the head of the line.   
“Hopefully, she won’t mind all of us showing up at her doorstep in the dead of night,” Krem said. “Although I have never known her to turn away an unexpected guest.”   
“She will be expecting us,” Dorian said.   
“The Nightingale and the Wren will have told her,” Bull said, more cheerfully than Flora expected when discussing the Divine and her spymaster.   
“I wrote her a letter,” Dorian said, Flora heard his teeth grinding.   
“The Boss likes red heads,” Krem helpfully supplied. “He has a weakness for them.”   
“The Wren does not have red hair,” Dorian said, over his shoulder.   
“She kind of does. When she angles her head in the sunlight it looks red,” Krem raised his forefinger. “Or when she stood in the shadow of the tavern between assignments, it definitely looked red then,” his middle finger sprung up. “Or when the sun was going down or coming up, it looked red,” his ring finger joined in and he looked prepared to keep counting all the ways The Wren’s hair looked red. Flora wouldn’t have been surprised if, when that list ran out, he started naming all the colours of red in her hair from titian to auburn, and strawberry blond to electric orange.   
“It doesn’t matter. She is besotted by that professor from Starkhaven. Says his accent is sexy.” Rocky joined in.   
“Pretty sure they were married almost five years ago now. He works as a scholar of History for the Chantry now,” Stitches smiled and laughed. “Well beyond reach now. And the Divine is Divine.” He shrugged his shoulders as though the last sentence explained anything for Flora about the Chantry’s stance on relationships for the clergy.   
“We shall have to go in the back way, the horses aren’t allowed on the boulevard,” Dorian said, baldly changing the subject. “So around to the back, like commoners.”   
“We can lead your horse around the back while you walk to the front. Alone,” Krem said, a slight chuckle escaped.   
“In a few weeks, I won’t have to go alone,” he said, looking at Flora.   
“I don’t have a title here,” she said, the little furrows between her eyebrows deepened as she tried to puzzle out what he meant.   
“You will have at least two,” Bull said, looking at her in the dimly lit street. “Probably by the end of the month, if I know anything about how Josephine works. Then you will have to use the front door. All the time.” Flora could just make out the expression of comical disgust at the pageantry of class. They made their way down a well-used back alley behind a row of shadowed and tall houses. The horses’ hooves echoed eerily. It felt like something should happen; a band of assassins surprising them in the street or street urchins picking their pockets and laughing as they ran. But nothing did and they made it to the carriage mews with no mishaps. Flora even managed a competent dismount.   
“The servants were expecting us,” Dalish said, looking around at the collection of stable hands bustling about.   
“I wrote her a letter,” Dorian said, rolling his eyes. “I have manners.”  
They walked out into the garden, to see a woman silhouetted in the door frame. Her clothing could best be described as furbelowed. “Of course, we were expecting you, Ambassador Pavus. It is hard for you to leave Minrathous without attracting a little attention. But I thank you for your letter,” she said, her accent the same as Yvette’s. Flora remembered it from her dream. “And your guest has caused no small amount of speculation.” She turned back into the house, leaving them to follow.   
There were trunks stacked in the hallway, each one with a neatly written label. The tight script was too hard to read while walking. It looked like Josephine was packing for a lengthy journey.   
There was romance and grace in the proportions of the interior which did not exist in Tevinter. The floors were covered in tile or wood and plush carpets. The rooms Flora saw on her way were opulently decorated with what looked like expensive antique French furnishing, all sweeping lines and graceful bends.   
“Letters have already been written and preparations been made. We have accomplished much while you have been travelling Ambassador Pavus,” Josephine’s strident voice carried down the hallway.   
“Lady Montilyet,” he admonished, irony and warmth lacing every syllable of her name. “I believe we thoroughly discussed the use of my first name when last we met.” He smiled at her when she glanced over her shoulder.   
“I may not be the ambassador to the Inquisition or Divine any longer, but it does not mean I will abandon all sense of protocol. I am not Sarah.”  
“No. Your clothes are routinely without mustard stains,” there was a level of affectionate indulgence in his voice and Flora saw the crow’s feet near his eyes crinkle in an involuntary smile. “However, you have to admit a certain degree of familiarity exists in our relationship. That we have earned the right to use each other’s names as opposed to titles.”   
“You’re Ruffles,” Flora couldn’t have kept back the exclamation if she tried. A piece slotted into place from her dreams. The sister who needed bridges. Josephine had successfully managed to pull her family from generations worth of debt through her political savvy and ability to create strong networks.   
“There are worse things than you using my first name, Ambassador Pavus. Varric still uses that one in his correspondence with me. About official matters.” Despite her annoyed tone, it brought on a fond smile. Josephine turned to Flora and gave her a searching look, for which she was grateful. It certainly was better than getting blasted with fire. She was still suspicious but was willing to accept what the presence of others communicated. “And you must be Flora. The resemblance is terrifying.” She turned, leading them into a spacious salon.   
“Yes, you can imagine our surprise to find her mostly reasonable,” Dorian said, walking to a chair nearest the windows. A servant soon followed behind their rather scruffy crew, carrying a tray of wineglasses.   
“Dorian wrote of the mark,” Josephine said, her attention never having drifted from Flora.   
Flora untied the ribbon at her wrist and unwound the length of navy-blue silk from her hand, wincing slightly as the pressure was released turning a bearable ache into a piercing sting. She held up her hand as it arced green chased by a flash of blue from within the shallow flesh of her palm.   
“The last one wasn’t a hole, was it boss?” Stitches asked, he stood up and came closer, pulling her hand into his. He held it up to his eye, like a magnifying glass, looking at the room between the bones.   
Krem shook his head over it. Flora wasn’t sure if it was because of Stitches’ curiosity or because of the mark.   
“Well, I suppose that answers that question. Which means Divine Victoria’s plan must be put into motion immediately. My ship is ready in the harbour. We shall depart for the Storm Coast with the tides. With a detour. Lucille always sends the invitation, and it is always best to appease my trading partners,” Josephine said, as though a lengthy ship ride to attend a party was of little inconvenience.   
Flora curled her fingers into her palm, squeezing hard against the pain. Krem pulled the ribbon, tugging it gently out of her grasp. He took her hand and wrapped the length of silk back around it. Winding it tightly and carefully before tying it at the wrist once more. He patted her awkwardly on the back and handed her his wine glass. Over the last few weeks, Krem and Sandal both watched her, learning when she was in pain, picking up on the signs she was tired before she started to fall out of the saddle. Flora knew Bull had assigned the task of her safety to Krem but they had developed an easy friendship. One for which she was grateful right now, taking a gulp from the wineglass until the piercing pain receded, leaving her once again with an ache.   
“I am afraid that means you are in for more history lessons,” Bull winked and Dorian sighed. “Hours of family trees.”   
“You study them just as intently as anyone else. Except you excuse it as professionalism,” Dorian glared at him over the rim of his wineglass as he took a sip.   
“Knowing everything about a target has saved my ass more than a few times in the past.”   
“Boss, I think we may need to get her to bed,” Krem said, as Flora nodded forward into her wineglass. She shook her head to dispel the wave of sleep; she felt The Fade licking at the corners of her mind.   
“Kadan,” Bull looked at her worriedly. “She needs proper sleep. Stitches has tried everything. Anything in your studies point to a way she can get that?”   
“Nothing. I suspect we need a proper alchemist, Amatus,” Dorian’s clipped accent carried through her exhaustion fogged mind and a single word registered.   
“Isn’t that someone who brews potions from plants?” Flora asked.   
“Yes. Adan was quite the master of the profession at Haven and studied extensively at Skyhold. He took himself off to the refuge a few months ago,” Stitches said.   
“Then he is accessible,” Krem said, punching Stitches lightly in the arm as a fiery blush spread over the healer’s cheeks.   
“I will be able to read on the ship and find something. Providing the Ancient Elvhenan scholars are better than the chantry ones,” Flora said, placing her glass on the table. Krem rose quickly and held a hand out to help her from the chair, her muscles having stiffened and become quite sore in the short time they had been sitting in the salon. “But for the moment, Lady Monilyet, I would ask that someone please direct me to my room.”   
Josephine smirked at Dorian, having clearly won the battle concerning protocol. “It won’t matter my dear Josie, I will have her speaking to you familiarly in a matter of days,” he smiled. She gestured for Flora to follow.   
The last thing either of them heard from the salon behind them was Rocky loudly declaring that the Chargers would be found, en masse, in the local tavern in the morning. “Don’t forget about us.”   
“As if we could,” Dorian’s enunciated consonants carried over the general din of a collection of people in armor moving in a confined space. 

The ship was grand but Flora expected little else. The sails snapped and yellow silk flags fluttered lazily in the breeze. The calls of sea birds carried from the shore. Flora marvelled at the activity on deck, having only seen pirate movies. And they were a poor portrait.   
People heaved and hauled trunks from barges in the water below. Moved bundles and boxes around the ship. Something sloshed noisily in a barrel as it was rolled by her onto rigging and then winched below deck.   
“Watch your legs in the shrouds lad,” an older sailor called up to a deck hand tangled in the riggings. Flora looked up to see a very young man grappling with the ropes in a desperate attempt to free himself and keep climbing.   
“Anchor!” The ship’s captain yelled, his voice carrying from the quarter deck.   
Men grunted as they pushed a heavy turnstile, coiling the seaweed covered chain around it, splashing and banging against the ship as it went. Clanking as it fell into place against itself. A rush of runners across the deck, some abandoning other tasks to see the anchor weighed faster.   
Josephine and the navigational officer were discussing how best to approach Ostwick, their voices carrying on the wind, so Flora could hear small bits of their conversation.   
“It would be better not to take the row boats in.”   
“Yes, my lady, but the cliff side docks present their own problems at the moment. We do not have permits.”   
“We’ll worry about that when we get there. Water stained silk at a party would be unpardonable.”   
Flora headed to the fo’c’sle, she learned the name because a sailor yelled it as she went, where Dorian was leaning over the railings watching the keel cut through the Amaranthine Ocean. She stood with him, listening to the groan and grating of the wood around them and the splashing of the water against the hull as they moved forward.  
“Oswick?” she leaned forward on her forearms beside him.   
“Where the Trevelyans, my cousins, are the seventh most important family.”   
“Daunting.”   
He hummed a generic assent. “But do not worry. Josephine will ensure you are armed with the best diplomatic training and I am sure Divine Victoria and the Wren have sent a staggering amount of gossip and secrets for our exclusive use.”   
“Why would they help?” the question had long plagued her. All of these people of considerable power were being marshalled behind her in a ruse, there had to be a reason they wanted it to happen.   
“The Divine has spent more time in armor than vestments. She has changed so much about the Chantry it caused revolutions. Blood fills the streets in Orlais as she deploys the Inquisition’s full forces to quell violent dissenters. The heads of state elsewhere wonder at the wisdom of continuing to allow her an army. It is one of the many reasons the Commander will be named Teryn soon, effectively keeping him chained to the Ferelden crown and allowing continued loyalty to the Chantry. Serving two masters. Her majesty, Queen Anora, is clever.” He turned slightly, leaning on his right arm. “You are the key to her continued ability to engage in military action. With the Herald of Andraste alive, well, and actively taking part in world affairs, they will have to let you continue to have a military force. Which means, she still has one.”   
“That sounds ominous.”   
“Likely you will need the military support. This won’t just be a lone treasure hunt. Solas’ cultists are vicious. Deadly. They will kill whoever gets in their way and have no problems unleashing hordes of demons on villages to get what they want.”   
They both turned to look at the sea. Flora had yet to face the reality of death here. Intellectually, she realized she might have to take a life to survive. Solas had taught her enough destructive and defensive spells for her to understand the possibility. But it was only now that she connected possibility with probability. She shuddered.   
“There is no point in dwelling on it now,” Dorian said. He put his arm around her shoulders and jostled her affectionately. “You do have more important matters to focus on if you ever want to sleep again. The books shouldn’t wait. Nor should the experiments. I think I am going to enjoy this voyage.”   
The weeks on the ship passed this way. She and Dorian often found themselves in the galley, distilling extracts with ridiculously expensive and specific glassware. He, Flora, and Sandal often shared the long table underneath the windows in the lounge, where the captain’s quarters would have traditionally been. Sandal took copious notes. His observations clear and accurate. While there was plenty of information on what sent dreamers into The Fade. There was little on what kept them out.   
“It is because they were elevated, both in ancient Tevinter and Elvhenan societies. They wanted to be in The Fade. They were revered for it. No one thought to experiment or even write a theory about what might stop them from going.” Dorian threw his quill down in frustration, the vanes of the feather skittering in ink droplets, smearing them across the parchment.  
“It would be extraordinarily helpful if there was a complete listing of all the plants in Thedas and their uses.” Flora flipped another page in the illuminated manuscript. After weeks of handling them, she finally learned to treat them as she would any other book.   
“Do they have that where you are from?” The boat swayed slightly as they crested a wave, Dorian caught the ink and flipped it closed before it could ruin the manuscripts. Sandal took it from him and placed it in the specially designed container in the table.   
“No. But we had a growing list. We hadn’t discovered all the plants yet. But here, I know less than what a quarter of these might do. Stitches knows some but not all.” She shook her head. There were too many gaps in their knowledge to create a working hypothesis for anything.   
The door banged open as the ship swayed again and Stitches strode into the room, his arms overflowing with parchments and plants. He sat at the table beside Sandal and started putting pages into his own enchanted notebook cover. “These are bloody brilliant,” he said, riffling through the papers now scattered all over to find the correct pages. He handed copies of some to Flora, mostly sketches of the various leaves now haphazardly strewn across the table.   
The days would have seemed monotonous but Flora felt the building of potential, like a balloon blown up so much it was at risk of popping. It wasn’t excitement or dread but something in between which still welled up within her and made her feel restless and unfocused. And it continued building after Josephine had stitched her into a dress fancier than anything Flora had worn before. The silk flowed around her as she boarded the carriage on the wharf and around her ankles as Dorian twirled her on the dance floor at Aunt Lucille’s summer party. After too much punch, too many twirls, too many secrets, and far too many people, Esme Trevelyan decided it was better to consider Flora the daughter she never lost.   
“Or never really had at all,” Dorian said, under his breath, his expression almost as dark as the sky, as they left for the ship. “Her original one was a travesty and a plague upon us all. I am hoping the trend will continue in your favour, dear cousin.”


	10. Chapter 10

The captain announced the Storm Coast was in sight. Flora joined Bull on the deck. He looked at a massive statue of a dwarf. He fisted his right hand and held it over his heart.   
“We killed a dragon there once. She was a Vinsomer. Breathed lightening. I watched her kill a giant,”   
“Hard to starboard,” the captain’s calm voice carried over the decks.   
“The depth charts show rocks on the starboard just before the docks, we are going to have to pull the sails hard,” the navigational officer passed the orders to runners to call out along the foredecks. Flora heard the rope unwinding, landing in coils on the deck. The sailors tacked at full sail into the windward side, tilting the boat heavily to the port and bringing up the hull; avoiding the rocks below the Waking Sea’s surface.   
Flora and Bull scrambled across the deck. Grabbing the shrouds, planting their feet and leaning back as the deck shifted.   
“Kaffas,” Dorian’s voice carried through the walls of the lounge.   
Bull chuckled. “He’ll be fine. Probably covered in ink though.” Flora snickered slightly and adjusted her hold on the ropes. Bull reached over and held her wrist, maintain his own tight grip on the rigging. “Don’t want to lose you overboard.”   
“Bring her up lads,” the navigational officer called out across the decks. The ship splashed back down, its hull bobbing as it levelled out.   
“Now, let’s see who’s here,” Bull said.   
The anchor dropped with a fantastic splash, drenching the young deckhand who leaned over the railing to watch. The young man had many mishaps since they left Antiva City weeks ago.   
She looked at the grand stone carvings lining the shore. The rocks hewn into octagonal stepping stones and more giant stone dwarves topped the small islands dotting the coast line. Flora peered into the distance to see people moving on the shore.   
“Probably the Blades of Hessarian,” Bull said. “They still work for the Inquisition. She would have just killed them all. But the Chargers saved them. Not sure if the best strategy is to send you over first. Or to wait and send you with the Chargers. Varric is likely to shoot first and never ask questions,” he said, stroking his chin. “They might be less likely to attack you if you wore something pretty. Enough to distract them for a minute.”   
“What’s wrong with what I am wearing? Dorian sent so many letters. There is no way they don’t know.”   
“Those are easily intercepted. Even with the Nightingale’s birds. It isn’t as safe to send vital information here. In Antiva, Josie has the Crows brought well to heel. And anything they don’t catch, the House of Repose, cleans up. Here it is different. Queen Anora is very concerned about the military force camped on the borders between Ferelden and Orlais. There is every possibility information would be intercepted and passed on. Although, the Ferelden spies are not as good as the Chantry’s. And they didn’t hire me. I might be worrying for nothing.”   
“I still find it strange that one can be a spy for hire. Private military contractors, I get. Assassins even. But who pays a spy? Can you buy the loyalty needed?” Flora looked up at him, having to tilt her head pretty far back.   
“A sufficient amount of coin can buy you anything for a minute. As to what you are wearing, call it gut instinct or intuition, or an understanding of people. Varric will be distracted by a grand entrance. It is the writer in him.”  
“Planning theatrics now?” Dorian said, closing the door to the lounge. “Will you have her stand in the bow of the long boat?”  
“It sounds better when you say it less sarcastically,” Bull said, looking down at him and smirking at the ink splattered across Dorian’s sleeve. “Just try it. You will realize it is actually a good plan.”   
“Come on, dear cousin, boots on the ground and all that. We are going over, the three of us together,” Dorian said, crossing his arms. “And Krem too. He can block Bianca.”   
“Bianca?” Flora asked.   
“Don’t ask,” Dorian and Bull said together. They didn’t laugh or smile. 

The splash and spray of the sea was cold when they landed in the water. Flora shivered as her stomach relocated to its proper position after being dropped from the ship. The sailors rowed them to shore, the cockswain calling the coordinated movements with a loud “heave”. They crested waves. The wind cut through. “It woudn’t take terribly long to cross, they said, less than half an hour,” she shook her head. She wished she hadn’t listened and put on a heavier coat. She looked over to Dorian, who shivered. Krem and Bull, despite his naked chest, seemed fine.   
The boat hit the shale, rattling the rocks. Waves foamed through the sharp stones. Men and women pushed another boat out, grunting with the effort, behind her Flora heard the splash of oars hitting the water. A cockswain called louder to be heard over the din on the shore. Krem held the boat steady, offering a hand as Flora readjusted to solid ground.   
A cross bow bolt nocked into place. Flora had never heard one before but knew it. Krem yanked on her hand and pulled her behind him, his grip on her wrist tight and the slight twisting of the ribbons burnt. She cast a barrier over the two of them.   
“I didn’t expect the two of you to dig her up from whatever rat hole she was hiding in with Blackwall.” The unreasonably open shirt meant it could only be Varric, Flora realized. “I expected better of you Sparkles. And Tiny, couldn’t you have at least tried to talk him out of it?” He looked down the sight of the cross bow, Flora tucked herself further behind Krem.   
“Everyone who still has their left hand, raise it,” Bull said, pushing the cocking stirrup of the crossbow towards the ground with a single finger. She stuck her ribbon wrapped hand in the air. “You should have taken the ribbon off,” he said as he looked over his shoulder. “That would have been dramatic.”   
“Lord Curly won’t be happy,” Varric said.   
“Jospehine will likely strangle you with whatever vines are hanging off your family tree if you continue to flout titles like that,” Dorian looked mournfully at his ink covered sleeve.   
“Ruffles? Nah, she loves me. I question your good sense Sparkles. Regardless of the fact that she has an extra hand she shouldn’t.” Varric’s eyes widened in shock as another boat was shoved onto the shore. “Sandal? Boy, do I know someone who is going to be glad to see you. Let me guess. You found him. Because, of course, that is how the story would go.”   
She peeked over Krem’s shoulder. Some of the threat melted from Varric as he looked at Sandal. “He found me.”   
Varric turned and started to walk along the beach and they followed. The carved stones rose up around them. The trees were lush and verdant. Flora looked around at what she considered to be the equivalent of a mountainous Boreal forest. She caught glimpses of a grey stone manor house looking over a cliff, tucked in the trees.   
Flora tensed as they approached the manor. Up until this point, meeting people she had dreamed about was not awkward. She knew very little about them. The Commander was different. She knew so much about him. Things she shouldn’t know. Big things, like his struggle with lyrium addiction and the torture he experienced. And little things, like how he scratched between his dog’s ears as they walked. She knew his deepest regrets and even deeper secrets.   
She stopped moving forward.   
Varric was already at the door. Bull looked over his shoulder, and nudged Dorian to do the same. Krem waited patiently for Flora to start moving again. “You have to come inside. There is no reason to be afraid,” Dorian said.   
“Oh, but there definitely is,” she thought.   
“Take the ribbon off. Shock him into silence before he can yell at you to leave,” Bull said.   
Flora didn’t have to ask if the former Inquisitor had been terrible. She knew it. She saw it. She shook her head at Bull. She knew the fluorescent green pulse in her hand would cause damage, not physical but emotional. The Inquistor’s hand had always arced before she did something malicious. And the Commander knew it too; had become conditioned to respond to it. She had seen it. Her fingers curled in, not in pain, because she was getting used to it. She hid the mark behind her fingers because the ribbon was not enough.   
Krem slipped his hand around her elbow and pulled her forward. Her feet resisted for a fraction of a second. She willed herself to walk. She would have to do this eventually. “May as well get this over with,” she said, her reluctance in her tone now that she was moving.   
“Like pulling an arrow out of a wound,” Krem said, there was a hint of a smile. “Sometimes it is just better to yank it out all at once, barbs and all. And deal with the damage later.”   
Flora laughed, surprised, full, and round. “My equivalent expression would be about bandages. Just rip it off fast so you don’t feel the sting of glue sticking to your skin and hair.”   
“Slightly less violent,” Krem nodded. “You glue your bandages on? That seems awful.”   
“I will explain it later, I promise.” Flora’s foot landed on the first stone stair. She froze again and Krem pulled her forward once more, and into the light and airy entry way of the manor house.   
The Commander stepped from a door, his polished gold breast plate and red silk mantel catching the light. He flexed his hands over the hilt of his sword as he stopped, a reflexive gesture. He had a ready smile for Dorian and Bull, the crow’s feet around his eyes just starting to crinkle. A hearty greeting for his friends started. Until he saw Flora.   
His face hardened. The lines which bracketed his mouth deepened. The crow’s feet around his eyes flattened out. And two lines appeared between his eyebrows. He looked ready to snarl at her but instead he turned on his heel and walked away, his boot heels furiously striking the tiled floor. Dorian looked to Bull and Krem and they followed the Commander.   
Varric cleared his throat. “So, that thing even real?”   
“Not enchantment,” Sandal said, firmly.   
“No need to get defensive,” Varric said, his shoulders raising slightly, but Sandal returned a challenging stare.   
While Varric was less explosive than Dorian upon first meeting her, Flora realized he was more suspicious. Dorian was able to see and understand the magic used on her and by her. It made her feel different than the former Inquisitor. Varric did not have those capabilities. He was taking another’s word for it and he was not comfortable with it. Regardless of how much he trusted her companions. Flora felt the ache in her heart that accompanied the one in her hand as the power from the Well of Sorrows surged across her awareness. He needed proof. He needed a visible and tangible sign.   
Flora untied the ribbon at her wrist, tensing against the piercing sting and wincing as the pressure was loosened. She flexed her fingers and held her hand up as it arced brilliant and electric blue. “I can help. And I want to,” she said, turning her hand over and curling her fingers into her palm. Easing the pain.   
“Are those bones?” Varric looked through the corona of magic on the back of her hand. “Like it isn’t just a mark on the top? You are missing part of your hand?”   
Flora nodded.   
“Maker’s balls,” he whistled low. “How’d you get that?”   
“Two gods, one dead and one alive,” Flora said, shrugging her shoulders, remembering his love of convoluted cliched storylines.   
“Well, I will give you, at least you read them.” He laughed.   
A door opened, the three of them turned at the sudden flood of light. “If you would just come out and speak with her,” Dorian said. “I have travelled with her for months now. If she were to suddenly revert in behaviour it would have been then. We even forced her to go to a ball and she didn’t light anything on fire and she could have.”  
“What would you have lit on fire?” Varric said, a smile starting.   
“The Marquis de Chevin’s cousin needs to learn to keep his hands to himself.”   
“What’d you do instead?”   
“Made his fingers turn blue with frost bite. If he isn’t going to play nice, then he shouldn’t get to play at all. And toys can be removed,” she said, her lips thinning and her right hand fisted at her side.   
It surprised a laugh out of Varric. “Look, this is going to take a while, and I am betting you’re tired. Lord Curly has a lot of rooms. We can stash you in one and he won’t even know you are here. It’ll likely do you good to get some rest and tackle the task of convincing him tomorrow.” He turned to lead her up the stairs. “Besides, I have a rather important letter to write and standing in the hallway means minutes ticking away. I am not sure my friend would forgive me the loss.” He looked at Sandal.   
Flora felt the full weight of her exhaustion the moment he said it. She nodded wearily and followed him. 

Flora hadn’t laid her head down for more than a minute before she found herself in the swirling confusion of The Fade. There were more voices here. So many of them calling out. She put her hands over her ears and sank to her knees; she shut her eyes tightly against the disharmonious onslaught. She searched desperately for one familiar voice. Her anchor in the chaos of this nightmare dimension.   
“Please make it stop,” she heard from so many others, as she listened for the familiar litany in the cacophony in and around her. She couldn’t find him. Panic started. The demons circled.   
“To work,” she whispered. The raven jumped when he said it. She searched through the pain. Her hand arced a sickly green. She cast a barrier over herself as she felt the ground bubble beside her. She readied a fire spell, felt it burn at the tips of her fingers. Her left hand stung as the potential built.   
A demon sprang from the boiling well, swiping at her. Hissing. Spitting. Her heart seized. Fear. Paralysing and agitating all at once. Her heart sped. Slammed. Her arm refused to work. She couldn’t get to her feet. The demon knocked her back. She rolled. Knelt. Tried to breath. She felt Cole’s cool fingers at her shoulder in the fraction of a second before he ran head first into the demon’s claws.   
The demon swiped at him. Catching him. Gashes running down his side. Flora cast another barrier. The demon flung him backwards. He rolled to a stop. She crawled to reach him. The demon screamed, tensing to jump. Dread and terror in equal measure flowed up within her. Adrenaline kicked in. She still felt the burn of the fire spell in her fingers and unleashed it. Another wave of fire came from her palm. She looked at Cole. He rolled to his side. Clutching the wound. Shaking awareness into his head. No blood bubbled over his fingers.   
Flora threw an ice mine beneath the demon. It jumped. Moved so quickly she couldn’t track it. Infront of her. It screamed. She felt fear rise and her heart accelerate. She tried to immolate it. It caught fire. It howled. She didn’t know if it was in pain or preparation.   
Electricity crackled in her finger tips, she threw a lightening cage, containing it. Cole got up. A cloaked demon shot him with a blast of wintery cold. She flung a fire ball at it, setting its cloak aflame. She snatched Cole behind her and sent a wave of fire towards it.   
She recast the barrier and manoeuvred herself in front of him, forming a third point in a deadly triangle. She felt a spirit beside her. She looked down and saw a child. The one from the willow in the Commander’s garden.   
The cloaked demon screamed. Her lightening cage was about to wear off. The demon sprung from it and swiped her with jagged claws. They rent her skin and left deep gashes. Blood ran down her side. She set him on fire again.   
The child looked at Flora. “Without you, I am lost.” She expanded and surrounded them. She felt herself forced back into wakefulness. She felt the blood spilling from the four deep gashes which ran from the side of her ribs to her abdomen. She pressed her hand there but it was coming too fast, over her fingers. She could feel her consciousness slipping away. Panic welled, pushing her adrenaline higher. She couldn’t focus on closing the wounds. And they bled more; faster as her heart sped.   
“Kaffas! She’ll bleed out,” Dorian said. He bolted across the room and pushed something soft over top of her hands, he pressed down so hard Flora’s breath was forced out. Pain reverberated through her as the wounds along her ribs stretched with her lungs as she gasped for air. She freed one of her hands, her blood covered fingers slipped and wrapped around his wrist. She looked at him, the edges of her vision darkening. “I need help. She might still survive this harrowing.”   
“What do you mean this one?” the metallic clang of a sword against the floor jolting Flora. More pressure on her ribs and Dorian’s wrist slipped through her fingers. She panicked.   
“It is just for a moment,” he said, his voice softening pulling the corner of the mound of fabric up.   
She nodded.   
Dorian and Cullen both sucked in a breath through their teeth and Flora felt cool air against her skin, chilling the blood which flowed freely as the wounds were revealed.   
“Who gave her lyrium?” The levelness of Cullen’s tone was underscored with a demand for immediate answers.   
“No one,” she choked out through the pain and the pressure on her lungs. The words gurgled slightly and she could taste blood.   
“She couldn’t find her anchor,” Cole said, groaning from the floor at the end of the bed.   
“Cole! Not good! Not Good!” Dorian looked up, panicked; Flora could feel it as his magic stuttered against her nerves. It hurt.   
“Maker’s Breath. It is on her hand,” Cullen said.   
“She couldn’t find it in the darkness. She couldn’t hear it. Too many,” Cole said, crawling forward on the floor. Flora could hear the drag of his shins.   
“Not much longer now,” Dorian said. The pressure shifted from directly on her lungs to along the side of her ribs. Easing the pain. “No one gives her lyrium. She closes her eyes and she is in the Fade.”  
“You might have warned me about the harrowing which would happen in my house,” Cullen said, there was a threat behind it.   
“How could I when you wouldn’t even speak about her?” Dorian glared at Cullen, removing the last of the fabric from under his fingers. “See? That wasn’t so bad? They might scar and this will definitely take a few days to overcome.”   
“Not the first time,” she said, her voice shaking.   
Dorian turned his attention to Cole and Flora moved to stand, pushing herself up on her elbows only to have Cullen push her back down again. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”   
Flora felt the tug of the Fade and watched Dorian as he pulled it, ripped it, and pushed it into Cole. Like tearing strips of cloth for a bandage. Closing the gashes which never bled.   
“What is a harrowing?” she asked, trying to keep herself awake and away from the Fade.   
“When you fight a demon in the Fade. They used to force mages to do it.” Dorian said as he worked. “Some ended up possessed unless they managed to convince a spirit to fight with them.” He gestured to Cole. “You had Compassion.”   
“He is different. He is always with me there. He promised,” Flora felt sleepy, her eyes were starting to close. Cullen shook her awake.   
“Stitches brewed something for her to help. It should be in her satchel,” Dorian said, still focused on Cole.   
“Did he promise you?” Cullen asked her, Flora was struck by the undertone of authority there. An answer was demanded but she didn’t understand why.   
“The lady in flames,” he answered for himself and the same time as she whispered “Mythal.” Her eyes starting to close again. A glass vial was pressed into her hand.   
“Drink,” a quiet command.   
“Hope came at the end,” Cole said.


	11. Chapter 11

“Well, whatever it was, they have it now. We haven’t seen a Fen Harel cultists in some time,” Cullen said, placing his palms on his desk and leaning heavily forward.   
Exhaustion permeated the room. None of them managed sleep after Sandal woke the house. How he knew what was happening in the Fade, Flora still didn’t know. She looked around the sunny library, noticing how fatigue sat upon every occupant. The lines in Dorian’s face had deepened, almost as if they were etched there, he frowned as he looked at the titles on the bookshelf. Bull, as always, looked refreshed and completely comfortable. Varric continually rubbed his eyes as though the maps in front him were blurring. Cullen looked the same as yesterday, which spoke to how long he spent in this state.   
She shifted in her chair, trying to find a position which didn’t stretch the newly healed flesh along her ribs. The skin felt thin and delicate. Dorian handed her a sheaf of papers and she saw him look at Cullen sharply, monitoring him for signs of pain almost as closely as he did her.   
“Maker’s balls, I hate reading maps.”   
“Here, you read this then,” Flora said, waving the handful of parchment in her hand at Varric. She levered herself out of the chair. The sudden change in position caused what little blood she had left in her body to flow away from her head. She felt around for the chair arm to support herself and found a leather covered hand instead. She was shocked, pulling her hand back from Cullen’s before giving into the need for support. He helped her to a table covered in maps. He stood beside her, finger tips lightly touching her shoulder, making sure she was balanced before moving to the head of the table, watching her. Each hand drawn map documented a specific aspect of the the Storm Coast. Geological surveys, wildlife migrations, supply chains, weather patterns, all carefully marked.   
Flora took her time, peeling back layers of parchment from the table looking at the legends of each one. There was so much information. Between these, the accounts of the rifts here, the Blades of Hessarian logs, trade documentation, and the recent activities of the Inquisition it was an overload. “Geostatistical analysis software would have this solved in a relative instant,” Flora thought.   
She placed her palms flat on the table, leaning against it for support, whether it was from the effort of standing or against the tedium of the task in front of her she did not know. “Probably both,” she thought. Dorian came to stand beside her, his concern for her health evident. He was poised to catch her if she fell, something she recognized from her first experiences in the Fade.   
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Glancing up, she found every one looking at her. Waiting for her.   
“You were with him last,” Bull started.   
“And he didn’t tell me anything. Just put a hole in my hand and taught me enough magic to be dangerous,” she said, looking at cave systems along the coast. “However, if his lordship is right,” Flora said it unironically but it still caused Varric to smirk and snort.   
“There are two lords here,” Dorian supplied, less than helpfully.   
“Fine,” she said. “If the Commander is right then we have some time to find where they have been.”  
Cullen nodded his head. “Better to coordinate the approach rather than waste time.”   
“Exactly, and to that end, we need to understand the totality of the coast. Whenever I am looking for a small or rare plant, I map everything out. Layer geological surveys over soil analyses, create a map of trees in the area, mark the boundaries of settlements. I think, if we do that here, put everything on one map, we might be able to find a direction.”   
“If it means that I get to avoid the giant spiders which seem to inhabit every dark place on this continent, then I will help.” Dorian started stacking the parchments on one corner of the table under a glass paperweight. “Orlesian glass?”   
“A gift from the Divine. A box of them,” Culled said. “Apparently, the bits of armor and rocks I was using left scratches in the parchment.”  
“It never ceases to amaze me how many ways she can send a coded message,” Varric said. 

Flora rubbed the space between her eyebrows with her index finger. She felt the headache starting.   
“What I wouldn’t give for my glasses right now,” she said, remembering the blue plastic framed reading glasses she kept in her desk at work. In another world. She rubbed her hand across her forehead, hoping the pressure would ease some of the pain behind her eyes. They had spent the better part of three days pulling all the information together on two separate maps.   
She traced her finger along the coast, not actually following any real train of thought or evidence but to refocus her eyes and mind on the task at hand. Plotting all the vegetation. She meticulously drew in everywhere where anyone, ever, had harvested elfroot and spindle weed. The coast was littered with the three leaved notation she created for the map. She kept drawing them in along a river. Her hand cramping with the repeated movement.   
She dipped her quill in the ink again, a rusty brown. Sandal mixed a variety of colours, some which shimmered and sparkled and some which dried matte into the surface, to help them differentiate the layers of information. She looked at the survey map the Inquisition scouts initially made of the area almost a decade ago. She switched to an iridescent blue and started scratching deep mushrooms into the walls of a cave at the end of the river.   
“There are probably giant spiders in here too,” she said, rifling through the loose parchments on the desk to find any other references to this cave.   
“Early riser?” Varric said, coming into the room.   
“Decided not to sleep,” she said, searching through the papers.   
“No one needs a repeat of the other night. What are you looking for?” he asked, as she scanned another document.   
“Any mentions of this cave, here, at the end of the river.” She tapped her finger against a mushroom, and inadvertently smeared ink on the tip of her index finger.   
Varric started to rifle through the papers around her. “I think I remember a fade rift in that cave. The Wren documented all of them when she came here. There were only three. But here is something on a veil fire glyph on the wall.” He handed her the letter with the sketched rune. Flora made a tiny copy of the shape onto the map, using one of Sandal’s iridescent mixtures.   
“Is this the rift, the one at the falls?” she asked, finding a reference to it in Scout Harding’s clear hand writing.   
“That’s the one.” He handed her two more sheets of parchment.   
She looked at one, it was a note from Dorian about spiders hiding in the grasses in the cave. “This can’t be right,” she said, handing the paper back to him.   
“Nope, it is right. Grass and ferns grew inside the cave.”   
“Like at the mouth and near the opening the falls created?”   
“Yeah, there but everywhere inside. See, here, there is even Prophet’s Laurel growing in there,” he said, running his finger around the outside of the cave for emphasis.   
Flora scrambled for the overlay map, the one which detailed the higher elevations of the coast. Spilling and toppling stacks of notes. She slid it over top. She pulled out more parchment and started calculating angles of sunlight and distance.   
“There is no way grass could have grown in there. The sun just wouldn’t reach everywhere inside. It is impossible.”   
“Not impossible. I have been there,” he said. He stabbed his finger at the map, “there is grass and ferns growing right there.”   
“No one thought this was odd?”   
“Any odder than having to fight demons spilling from a hole in the sky? There was a lot of weird stuff going on at the time. We only took note of the big things.”   
Flora nodded. “We need to find more mentions of what is in this cave.” She started scanning and throwing documents on the floor. “Because right now, it looks like a lot of magic might be there.”   
“Maybe it is the glyph on the wall?”  
“Maybe,” she said, pushing to her feet and reaching for more piles of parchment. She sifted and sorted. Scanned and scattered. Papers started to accumulate in a large pile around her feet. “What is this? A magical artifact?” her voice almost panicked.   
“No idea. That looks like Chuckles’ handwriting,” he glanced at the paper.   
“Who is Chuckles?” she looked over at him.   
“Who do you think he could be? Let’s see if you can guess, frowns a lot, bald, created that mess and the one we are trying to prevent,” he crossed his arms and leaned back on his left leg.   
“Solas,” she whispered.   
“Got it in one,” he said.   
“Then this is where we will find it,” she said, her eyes widening and her voice rising. She kicked through the papers at her feet and shuffled out from between the chair and the table and burst into the hallway, sliding along the polished tile floor directly into the Commander’s polished breast plated chest. His hands came up to her shoulders to steady her but she pulled away almost immediately to wave the paper at him. “I found it,” she said, followed by a bright and high giggle. She spun around and lunged back into the room. She put her finger on the map, the cave at the end of the river. “Right here.”   
“I’ll send scouts immediately,” he started to turn to leave the room. The mantle of command falling easily on his shoulders as he shifted roles, from detective to military strategist.   
“Will they know what they are looking for?” she asked.   
“Maybe not,” he stopped and turned back to her. “But do you?”   
“No. But maybe I will recognize something.”   
“You cannot possibly suggest going by yourself.” Flora saw his authority in all things Inquisition related extended to her.   
“No. Absolutely not. Even if I weren’t still on the edge of recovery, I wouldn’t suggest that. But maybe a smaller party than a team of soldiers? In case it is something small and easily missed or trampled.” She shrugged her shoulders.   
“Curly, you know magical things. Get Sparkles, Tiny, and Krem and we will all go out together. I’ll go get Bianca. Surely between an experienced mage and a former templar, and maybe whatever she has seen, we can find whatever this is.” Varric said, walking towards the door. Almost as an afterthought, he turned, “you’re going to need a nickname.” 

The river flowed lazily beside them as they walked. The day was bright, sunny, and warm. The kind of fresh day, just on the cusp of summer, that made her want to spend time outside. A light breeze rushed over the grass and through the leaves. Flora took a deep breath and smiled slightly. It felt familiar. Like home. She hummed a few notes from nowhere, tuneless and contented. The rocks along the river crunched under her feet. There were a couple of the Blades of Hessarian walking along the other bank, directing logs to the coast, pushing them along with pikes. They called out to the Commander, saluting him.   
She watched the group ahead of her. All of these men knew power and command well. Dorian, a politician and lobbyist. Varric, an entire city under his direction. Bull, controlling a sprawling network of mercenaries and spies. At yet, they fell easily under Cullen’s leadership. There were no arguments. They all deferred to his decision making. She wondered whether this was because they were at his home or if it would extend beyond the borders of Ferledan. “Maybe old habits take a really long time to change?” she said, to herself. Sandal shook his head.   
“No. And if I could explain it I would,” Krem said. “You will see. What are we looking for?”   
“Something I hope to recognize when I see it,” she said, shrugging and narrowing her eyes slightly as the mouth of the cave appeared around a bend in the river.   
“This is going to go well,” he punched her arm lightly.   
“Let’s hope the giant spiders have moved somewhere else in the intervening years,” she shuddered. She originally imagined a slightly larger tarantula until Dorian explained they were the size of Bull’s torso and could take more than a few immolate spells to kill.   
“They never leave. And you can never find their egg sacks to make sure there are no more,” Dorian said over his shoulder.   
“They are fine, as long as you do not disturb them. They rarely leave the caves,” Varric said. “One of the many reasons I hate caves. Not all dwarves like them, you know.”   
“But we are headed off to disturb one of their nests,’ Dorian said, reaching behind him for the staff strapped to his back.   
The group transformed in an instant. Varric loaded a bolt into Bianca while Cullen unsheathed his sword and pulled his shield from his back. Daggers were drawn and axes readied. These were people used to combat, it was a large aspect of their existence. And one she did not yet understand. She filed herself behind Krem and readied a cold spell. Her fingers stung with it; she hadn’t remembered how biting it felt in her hand.   
Krem took the torch from the rock wall beside the cave just as Dorian ignited it and they plunged into the semi-darkness. She heard the clacking of a spider’s mandible long before she saw it. She threw up a barrier over everyone.   
A hiss. The torchlight reflected off in set of eyes. Many eyes. The spider lunged. Cullen brought his sword down and sliced through its carapace. He dashed towards the next one, shield in front, sending it scrabbling backwards. Bull brought down his two-handed axe next to Flora just as Krem yanked her out of the way. The spider shattered and oozed.   
The clacking again, causing her to lash out and catch one with a blast so cold it was frozen in blocks of ice and Bull shattered it, shards of frozen spider glinting in the torchlight. “Nice one,” Bull laughed. “I could get used to this team up.” She iced over another spider.  
It was a furious few minutes. But finally, the spiders stopped. “They will just regroup and be here when we try to leave,” Dorian said. “Maybe the artifact influences the spiders too.”   
The group moved on, into the deepest part of the cave. The vegetation around them verdantly green and lush, despite the darkness.   
“I have never seen anything like this,” she said, glancing around. The iridescent blue mushrooms made sense here. But the ferns and grasses didn’t and she had a difficult time rationalizing it, even when she knew magic explained it. She felt it pulsing around her. “Can anyone feel that?” The elemental forces in the cave were almost enough to make Flora’s hair stand on end, like with a statically charged balloon.   
“Feel what?” Dorian asked.   
“Not enchantment,” Sandal said, nodding his head.   
“Fascinating,” Dorian’s fear of spiders forgotten amidst learning something new. “I feel absolutely nothing.”   
She felt the anchor in her hand arc. Its power answering the call of whatever was in the cave. She untied the ribbon and watched it pulse.   
“Handy, that,” Varric said, she could just make out his smirk.   
“Let’s keep moving,” Cullen said, already starting off.   
As they moved, sunlight reflected back to them, like a signalling mirror. “Someone’s here,” Bull lowered his voice, its deep timbre barely heard above the crunch of the vegetation. He took a wider path, skirting along the edges of the walls, signalling Krem to the opposite wall.   
Flora barely breathed but each slight intake of air echoed in her ears. She swore the sound of their footsteps reverberated off the walls of the cave. She saw one spear of Prophet’s Laurel in the heavy greenery, its waxy red berries easily catching the light of the torch. She shook her head at the anomaly. Cullen sped them forward, his pace quickening and everyone keeping up.   
A mirror was propped up against the back wall of the cave. And not far from it, was something she recognized. It was just like the one in Solas’ library, bulbous, archaic, and pulsing a wicked fluorescent green. “The steam punk record player?” she cocked her head to the side. Utterly confused. Krem looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “I promise I will explain that later. It won’t make any sense when I do but I will try.” She smiled slightly. She reached for the artifact but it snapped and arced; magic burst from her hand.   
“I remember these. I only saw a few of them,’ Dorian said. “He said they prevented tears in the Veil.” His tone suggested he suspected there was more to these artifacts than what Solas had stated. Dorian moved forward to examine the mirror. Reaching out with cautious fingers to brush its surface. It shimmered. “It’s an eluvian.” The last was pronounced with a fair bit of wonder and an equal dose of contempt. It should have sounded flat but somehow managed to be both.   
Bull shouted and something scrabbled from the high grasses and ferns around their feet. Flora expected a hiss, another spider, but instead was caught unawares by lightening spell. It sparked her across her still delicate ribs. The new skin burnt faster and hurt more. She lashed out. A small tear opened in the Veil behind the young man. He was jerked back from his headlong sprint towards the Eluvian. She held her hand to her ribs, pressing hard.   
“Keep him alive,” Culled yelled.   
“I won’t let her stop us,” the mage said, his lip curling into a snarl as he brought his staff around.   
She heard the crack of lightening and was struck anew with another bolt. She fell to her knees as the electricity moved through her, across her heart, and into the ground. She gasped.   
“She’s hurt,” Krem called out over the fizzle of the electricity and the ringing in Flora’s ears.   
“You cannot stop us,” the young elven man yelled, the air was charged as he sent out another volley of lightening. Bull cried out and went down, limbs stiffening. She never heard him yell in pain before.   
“Amatus,” Dorian’s call was as pained as Bull’s.   
“Too much chaos caused by one little mage,” Varric said, firing a bolt directly into the young man’s hand.   
Krem swept in and planted dagger firmly in his thigh while he was distracted by the arrow in his palm. The mage raised his hand again, Flora could see the build of potential as purple sparks flashed from his fingertips. She cast a barrier. Held her breath. She closed her eyes and breathed out a concussive shockwave. Sending everyone standing flailing back a few steps. He was knocked against the wall; she heard his head and staff cracking against the stone.   
“Andraste’s tits,” Varric said, dusting himself off as she opened her eyes. “Warning would be nice.”   
Cullen walked towards the mage. Sword drawn and shield out front. The young man did not move, even when prodded with the point of a sword. Cullen let down his guard, the signal for everyone the skirmish was over.   
Dorian lunged to Bull’s prone form, examining the blackening burns on his skin. “It will be alright Amatus. I have you now,” he cradled Bull’s large head in his lap, healing the blistering skin and keening as he did it, his hand glowing a soft blue.   
“Boss has been through worse.”   
Cullen signalled to Dorian as Bull groaned and started to pull himself up. Cullen sighed. “Alive would have been better,” she heard him say. She felt the sting of tears. And the burn of a sob. Her hand flashed blue and every part of her ached. She killed someone.   
She closed her eyes and turned her head to the side as more tears fell. Someone knelt in front of her. She heard the creak of leather gloves. A hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to,” she said, her gasping between each word. “I didn’t want to.” She looked at Cullen then. “Please. I didn’t want to,” she said, before dissolving into a fit of gasping sobs.   
He pulled her against his shoulder then. She hid her face in the folds of his mantle, her hand flashing blue and knotting in the silk as she cried.


	12. Chapter 12

“How do murderers deal with this? All these horrible feelings. How do you deal with it?” Flora said, listlessly moving a pawn on the chess table in the Commander’s sunny courtyard garden. “I feel terrible. Guilty. Angry. Sad. I didn’t even know him.” She sighed.   
Dorian slid one of the Chantry mothers diagonally across the board, easily capturing the pawn she moved into harm’s way. “Coming to terms with my clearly inevitable victory will make you feel better. Celebrate how quickly this game will end. Those are positive feelings. Also, I am far from a murderer.”   
She moved forward in her seat and sighed again. She pushed a templar in the familiar “L” shape, away from the flaming representation of Andraste.   
“My dear cousin,” he said, with a half-smile. “You were defending yourself. Someone attacked you. There was very little you could do given that he was void-bent on doing you grievous harm.”   
“That doesn’t make it feel any better. Or else I would have rationalized it by now,” she said, frowning. She watched as he moved a mage into position, pushing it straight ahead, poised to take her templar.   
“No. It never does. It is always such a horrible waste. Some of us prefer words to blades; Josephine and myself. Others prefer to head conflict off at the pass through the judicious use of secrets…”   
“Blackmail, you mean.”   
“Yes, but in this world, sometimes it is take action or be killed. There are two very famous assassins’ guilds, at least one death cult, demons, bandits who want to rob you of everything, and that is just to name a few things. Sometimes you do not have a choice. You must come to terms with it. Or spend exorbitant an amount to hire personal body guards. Or find a lover who can protect you. Personally, I would recommend the third option. It works very well. For me.” He leaned back in his chair.  
“Only when you are not in the Imperium,” Bull said, leaning against a pillar in the sunny open courtyard. “There is no way to get through the feelings you have now. They will always be with you. You will always remember this.”   
“That is even less helpful.”   
“It is what you do with those feelings that matters. Will you remember this with pleasure? Pain? That determines how you change.”   
She moved the dawnstone figure of Andraste back along the far edge of the board, realizing she would likely lose the game in fewer than five moves. Dorian and she played the rest of the game in silence. He moved the crouched man with a sword, carved from obsidian, into position near her flaming prophet, perfectly poised to stab her as she burned. “Check.” He covered her hand where it rested on the edge of the board with his own and squeezed her fingers. “Tomorrow will be better.”   
Bull and Dorian left the garden. The sun warmed the space but Flora still felt cold. She shivered in the chair and curled herself forward. The last bits of shock were wearing off. She barely remembered yesterday. She knew what happened because they told her. Sandal deactivated the eluvian and they removed it from the cave. They posted soldiers all around it to protect the artifact. They were still not sure what it did or why it was important. Just that Solas wanted it enough to sacrifice someone for it.   
She pulled her legs up into the chair, hooking her booted heels over the edge of the seat, she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked. Feeling the sting of tears but knew there weren’t enough left to fall. She closed her eyes and breathed in the scents of the garden. There was the sweet apple scent of camomile underlaid with sugary lavender. She smiled slightly as she heard the stalks of the plants rattle against each other in the breeze.   
“Dorian said I would find you here. Something about losing at chess so spectacularly even I could beat you,” Cullen said, keeping his voice soft.   
“I was never very good at chess,” she said, opening her eyes and turning her head to settle her chin on her knees. She surveyed the wreck of the board. “I will admit, this was probably my worst effort.”   
“There are other things on your mind,” he said, sympathy in his voice and written across his features, as he moved the pieces back into their starting positions.   
“I am sorry for yesterday,” she said, her voice small. “I upset your plans. I ruined your coat thing. I didn’t help with the rest of it.”   
“There is nothing you could have done. Unless you are suggesting you would have been better suited to carry a heavy piece of glass all the way back,” he said, settling back into the chair.   
She shook her head.   
“Would you care for another game?” he waved his hand at the board.   
“I think I would prove a poor opponent in this state,” she attempted a smile, it was shaky and small but still an effort.   
“Yes. You would. But you may surprise yourself,” he said, leaning forward and tapping the board. “It would provide a distraction.”   
“I was finding the garden distracting. Thinking about the plants you have here. I can see sweet marjoram, roses, citrus trees. All of them meant to relax a person. Luring your opponents into a false sense of calm before they inevitably sacrifice their prophet?”   
“Hardly.” He smirked. “I find them comforting. Sleep is easier.” He looked at the leaves of marjoram plant, disturbed slightly by the breeze, avoiding her eyes.  
“Your dreams are pleasanter,” she said, putting her feet back on the ground. “Less tortured.”   
He looked at her, gaze sharpening. “You have seen them?”   
She nodded. “There is very little I do not know.” She gripped the edge of the chair, her knuckles turning white, the sharp pressure hurting what was left of her palm, even with the ribbon wrapped tightly around it.  
He pushed a pawn forward, an obsidian rogue with daggers drawn, and Flora felt the distraction would be better for both of them. She looked at the board, her fingers briefly lighting on several pieces as she considered their movements. She moved a pawn out, hers a dawnstone archer, bow drawn and arrow nocked.   
They played in silence. She propped her chin on her right hand, reaching out her left for a one of her templars.   
“Why do you wear the ribbon around your hand?”   
“The pressure eases the pain,” she moved the templar, hoping to block his pawn.   
He nodded and moved his mage out from behind a row of staggered rogues, poised to decimate her archers. “It is always painful.”   
“Some choices are,” she said, understanding there was a deeply personal secret hidden in his statement. “But it was the one I made and so I must find a way to live with it.” She sighed, her choices on the board were not the best and left her with few options. She took the mage with a chantry mother. As he intended.   
“Was it really a choice?”   
“Surprisingly, yes,” she said, pulling her hand back from the board.   
He took the chantry mother with the templar. Moving it into position to end the game shortly, its presence threatening Mythal’s vessel. Her only choice was to move the prophet, one space. Her fingers lingered on the carved amber flames swallowing the dawnstone, evaluating the options before her. She saw nothing better and withdrew, waiting for him.   
“Would you make it again?”   
“After yesterday, I don’t know. I would like to say yes. There was a part of me which realized what it would entail but I chose to ignore it. It just has a louder voice now that I have done it,” she shook her head, she felt a little detachment from it all. She watched him as he considered his options. She saw when he decided to prolong the game, choosing instead to move a pawn, insignificant to his strategy, rather than press the advantage.   
“It never gets easier. Even several steps removed, someone still signs the orders.” He sighed, withdrawing his hand from the board.   
“I knew it was possible, probable even. But confronting the reality of a likelihood is so much different.” She moved her remaining templar to capture the pawn he was sacrificing, following his lead in the game. The distraction of the game lent her the distance to analyse her feelings but they were still close enough to the surface to break through. Her breathing hitched as she sighed. Her throat burned and her eyes stung. Her fingers shook slightly as she removed them from the piece. “It feels unforgiveable.”   
“That will never change.”   
“How do you manage it?” her voice was small.   
“By living,” it was a simple statement. It could mean he ignored the feelings and tried to get on with his day but Flora suspected it was how he chose to live his life which mattered. He moved another pawn forward, leaving the space for her to take it without consequence.   
“Harder done than said.”   
“Yes, but worth the effort,” he said, settling back into his chair, waiting for Flora.   
He had been thawing by degrees over the last few days, she knew. Small courtesies at first. But this was new. She expected it of Dorian and Bull. They had been with her for weeks. Friendship had developed over time and in close quarters. And in Dorian’s case, it was forced on him by Solas. Here, Cullen was making a choice. He could choose to be outside the circle which was gathering around her. The issue of Solas was hard to ignore but not the reason he was offering her friendship now. Or his companionship in the garden. “A philosophy it may take me a few days, or months or even years, to be able to adopt. And friends to remind me when I don’t,” she said acknowledging the shift in their relationship.   
“I suspect you will find no shortage there,” he chuckled, bringing some lightness to the conversation.   
“What changed your mind?” she asked, finally taking the rogue he had offered up to her with the templar.   
“The harrowing.”   
“So glad that nearly bleeding out in your guest room was a catalyst.”   
“Not that.” He moved another rogue. “You reached for Dorian, and he didn’t want to pull away. He had to but didn’t want to.”   
“He would and has done the same for you,” she said, taking the rogue.   
“Yes.” He sighed, and contemplated the board once more. “It is disconcerting how much you know.”   
“I’m sorry.”   
“We should finish our game. My turn?” He moved a mage into position, forcing her to move her prophet. One space. He was out maneuvering her.   
They fell into silence, the sounds of the garden surrounding them but not intruding. Flora looked at the board, realizing she would have to admit defeat, both in terms of the game they ostensibly played and the conversation. Holding so tightly to the fear and regret would not serve her or the job she had to do. She couldn’t afford many days spent in nothingness and everyone wasting valuable time trying to help her.   
He slid the templar into position again. And she moved the prophet once more.   
She surveyed the board. He would end the game on his next turn. It would break the spell in the garden. The tranquility she found in this moment. The stability she found in his company. Whether it was here or in the Fade, he made her calm, made a space where she was unafraid of demons and her own feelings.   
“Check,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.   
“Thank you,” she said, intending it to be for more than just the game.   
“To work?” he said, putting his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself up. Flora smiled at the familiar phrase. It was slight. But he still saw it and returned one of his own. He extended a hand to help her up from the chair. “What is it?” he asked, sounding a little self-conscious.   
“You say that so often, your dog responds,” she said. “And the raven.”   
He blushed and rubbed the back of his neck as they both turned to walk from the garden. She laughed a little. She felt lighter. And better.   
“What were you looking for in the Fade? That night. Cole said you couldn’t find your anchor,” he asked.   
“And it is attached to my hand?” she said, glancing down at the ribbons wrapped around her left hand.   
He had the grace to look abashed at that. “You will have to forgive me that remark. I am not used to hosting a harrowing in my own home.”   
“Nor was I expecting to have a night like that,” she said, dryly. They moved through one of the archways into the arcade which surrounded the garden.   
“You avoid them by finding whatever it is you were looking for,” he said.   
“You,” she said, leaving him behind as she went in search of the others in the library.


End file.
